Why Church?: Worship

Raising up the broken to life.

Father thank you so much for the love and mercy that you've displayed to all of us.

Lord as the songs talked about the blood that you shed on the cross, the sacrifice that you made.

And Lord the ability that only you have to raising the broken back to life.

Lord bringing the dead back to life.

The forgiveness of sin that only you can offer.

God we're so grateful for that this morning.

And Lord as we talk about serving you and growing closer to you.

Lord I pray that you would remind us this morning that you know there was a time where every one of us was blind.

Lord we couldn't see, we didn't know which way was up and which way was down.

But Father I'm so thankful that you came into our hearts and lives and Lord you showed us truth and you showed us the right path.

And Father if there's anybody in this room who's wondering or questioning this morning.

God we ask that you would speak to their hearts right now and Lord that you would in this moment help them to see clearly what truth really is.

And the path that you've called every single one of us to take.

Lord we give ourselves to you this morning we give you this time.

And Jesus as we pray for this moment for everyone here Lord we remember our brothers and sisters who are traveling this morning on vacation.

Lord we pray that they would be safe but more importantly God that they would be well rested.

Lord that they would come back refreshed and renewed.

And Lord even as they're sitting on the beach or going to the mountains or whatever it is that they may be doing to God they would feel your presence in their life.

Speaking to them even as we're praying for them right now.

Father we ask for you to be with Mr. Ralph this morning.

Lord he's had a tough week and has not done well physically and so Lord we just pray for him.

Pray for Miss Kathy and the family as they're helping take care of him.

God we just ask that you would touch him this morning and touch their family.

Continue to be with Mr. Ted and Lord all of our other shut-ins who aren't able to be with us Lord we just ask that you would be with them this morning just speaking to their hearts.

Father this is your time this is your church and Lord we are your people and I pray that you would speak powerfully this morning through your word and through the prompting of your Holy Spirit in our lives.

Jesus we love you we thank you and we ask all this in your precious and holy name all God's people said Amen you may be seated.

If you have your Bibles if you will turn to John chapter 16 we're going to start out reading verses five through nine and this is Jesus teaching his disciples and kind of preparing them for his exit of the earth and the coming of the Holy Spirit so let's read this together.

John 16 · chapter mention

But now I'm going away to the one who sent me and not one of you is asking where I'm going instead you grieve because of what I've told you but in fact it is best for you that I go away because if I don't the advocate which is the Holy Spirit won't come.

If I do go away then I will send him to you and when he comes he will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment.

The world's sin is that it refuses to believe in me. I use that passage a lot for funerals as I talk to people about eternal life and just remind everyone you know of everything in this life that you have done or could ever do.

The sin that will send you to hell is not believing in Jesus Christ.

Nothing else can keep you out of heaven other than simply not believing in Jesus Christ who saved you from your sins and bled and died for you.

So let's skip to Acts two verses one through four. You can turn there will be on the screen.

So this is what happens when the advocate or the Holy Spirit comes. Let's read this together.

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place and suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm and it filled the house where they were sitting.

Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

Now we're going to skip down to the bottom of chapter two and see what the end result is of Jesus ascending to heaven leaving this physical earth sending the Holy Spirit to come and fill his followers with.

And in Acts two verse forty one it says those who believed what Peter said because he began preaching were baptized and added to the church that day about three thousand in all.

And what you have is this amazing account of what happens when things are done according to the purpose and plan and the way that God intended for them to be.

Now that's difficult because a lot of times we as people we step in and we do things and a lot of times we get it out of order or we don't follow exactly what God tells us do.

So sometimes we can jumble that up and then you don't have this amazing thing that just just kind of happens and it's it's so wonderful and amazing that everyone gets to experience that everyone can testify and bring notice to it.

But the disciples were very faithful in this. Now they didn't do everything perfectly. OK. So when Jesus is on trial and he's crucified the disciples are dropping the ball regularly.

But when Jesus resurrects himself from the dead and he walks with them on earth and he kind of reaffirms their faith in him before he ascends to heaven.

He reminds them you stay in Jerusalem and you pray and you keep meeting together and you pray for God to send the Holy Spirit.

And finally when the Holy Spirit comes heaven breaks loose and then you see this amazing like first kind of feel of revival that we see in the biblical setting where the church is birthed on this day.

And so this month we're asking the question why church and there might be some of you here this morning who are here begrudgingly like maybe you didn't want to be here.

Maybe a spouse drug you or a parent drug you or maybe a kid kind of like you know charmed you into coming this morning.

You came but you don't really want to be here and there's always this question in people's minds of like why is church so important.

Maybe there's some of you here this morning who've like you feel that church is important in your life and you're trying to minister and witness to other people and you've invited other people to church and they have not had the realization in their heart of why it's so important in their relationship with God.

And so my hope is is that by the end of this series in the month of July that we'll be able to either understand it ourselves or at least kind of communicate some reasons why to give people maybe a little extra push in and understanding as why church is so important for us as believers.

Is that fair? First thing we're talking about this morning is worship.

Church is vitally important in our lives because of worship and you see this with what we just read in our focus passages from John 16 verses 5 through 9 Jesus very much understood.

John 16:5–9

I mean think about this Jesus Christ understood very much that it was more important for the disciples to be filled with the Holy Spirit than it was for them to walk in his presence.

Now I'm going to let that soak in for a second. I'm going to say it again. Jesus very much understood that it was more important for the disciples to be filled with the Holy Spirit than it was to walk in his physical presence on this earth.

There is a big difference between walking alongside someone who can kind of tell you what to do and kind of keep you accountable versus having the very spirit of God living in your life and speaking in you and through you and empowering you totally different things.

And what we see is when the Holy Spirit comes after they set in Jerusalem and they kept meeting together with one another and they kept praying with one another that the Holy Spirit finally comes as Jesus promised.

And when it did, you know, usually the vernacular is all H-E-O-L breaks loose, but it's all heaven breaks loose and it's a wonderful thing.

And it's so amazing and it's so powerful that people begin to like come and they're waiting to see like what is going on because this is not normal.

What's happening? There's a commotion. They feel something different.

And whenever the crowd start coming, the Holy Spirit prompts Peter to start preaching and presenting the message of the gospel about Jesus Christ to these people.

And it was so powerful and it wasn't because Peter's words were so eloquent or so well planned or he had the sermon written.

It was because the Holy Spirit was working and moving through people and prompted them, convicted them to believe in the Son of God.

You remember what Jesus said in John 6? He said the Holy Spirit would come and it would convict them of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment.

It would convict them to believe in the Son of God.

And so when the Holy Spirit comes, it provides this opportunity for people to gather, to be together for this time of worship and meeting with God to happen.

And this is what we're talking about this morning. So point number one, I feel like whenever we talk about stuff, it's really important for us to make sure to understand there's always a little bit of pushback from people and things.

And so I want to throw out a disclaimer point. Point number one, you can never replace personal worship.

Before we dive into this, I want to be very clear in communicating that your personal worship of Jesus Christ, God the Father, and being personally filled with the Holy Spirit is of vital importance to your relationship with God.

I fully acknowledge that. I believe that. We have said many times here at Graham Chapel that your personal worship will have an effect, an impact on what happens here when we meet corporately to have church.

It will. If you're living in sin, if you're having an affair, if you're still in money, if you're out sacrificing dogs in the backyard or robbing banks, we can go as big or far as weird as you want to go.

If you're doing that Monday through Saturday and you show up here at church, that is going to come and leak into what's happening here.

There are sins that you have that will that will leak over and infect the people around you in your life, in your home, but also even in your church.

And if you're not seeking Christ and he's not the focal point of your life, why would we ever expect to come to church on Sunday morning and think that all of a sudden we're just going to get it right one day out of the week?

Now, I'm not naturally gifted in a lot of stuff, but I have found out in my life that whatever it is, if it's sports or if it's a hobby, if it's carpentry, if it's mechanic, whatever it is, that if you want to be really good at it, you got to do it regularly.

You got to stay in practice. And if you don't stay in practice, you get rusty. And from the simplest stuff, it's just not there.

And you can't just show up one day when you're 40 years old and you haven't played basketball in 10 years and expect to go out there and put up triple double.

It's not going to happen. You cannot expect to show up to church on Sunday morning and feel the spirit of God and worship and feel comfortable and be excited about what's going on if personal worship is not happening in your life Monday through Saturday.

So there are going to be people. You may be sitting here this morning and you may say this personally, you may be trying to invite someone to church and they're saying this stuff.

Well, I feel so much closer to God being out in the woods or being out in nature or doing this or doing that.

You know, they'll say, well, when I'm out in the deer stand or I'm hunting, I feel so much closer to God. I get it. I'm not denying truth in that.

I can testify to you this morning as a pastor that there are places that are outside of a church building that I have felt incredibly and amazingly close to God, sometimes in a more powerful way than what I have felt even inside of a church building.

I understand that and I can testify to that even in my own life.

The disclaimer point is you cannot replace personal worship. Yes, it is important. Yes, it should be happening in your life.

But we have to come to an understanding and a realization that serving Jesus Christ is not this once a week thing.

It's not a choice of what we feel comfortable with and what we know, but it's this calling on our life to constantly surrender to Jesus Christ to step out of our comfort zones and do things and be different people who Christ has called you to be.

And understand this morning that whoever you are, whoever it is that you're trying to invite the church, Jesus Christ does love them.

Jesus Christ has created him, but make no mistake about it. Jesus Christ did die so that we could be different, not stay the same.

He did not suffer and bleed and die on that cross so that we could just keep being the people we were before we ask him into our heart.

He suffered and bled and died so that we could change, so that we could be the men and women he's called us to be.

Personal worship should be in every aspect of our life, but we need more than that.

I had the privilege of having this really great conversation with Sis and Lella Reed this past week. Sis is 102 today, by the way, if you didn't know that, so make sure you call her and tell her happy birthday.

But we were talking there and they were telling me about a time where they went with the youth to a youth convention years ago.

And if you know Sis and Lella Reed, the thought of them going to a youth convention with thousands of teenagers and loud music inside this room is pretty humorous because that just doesn't seem like their cup of tea.

But she was talking about how powerful it was to be with so many people inside of a room, worshipping and singing songs and reading scripture together and hearing the word of God being preached and how powerful that was.

And there's just some things that you cannot substitute.

And this morning when we talk about church, church can be 15, 20 people, church can be a thousand people, church can be whatever, more.

There's good things and there's other things that when you go to certain numbers, there's some things about each of them that have things about them, there's some things that have great things about them.

But there's something about meeting with other believers that is right, that Christ has called us to, that Christ affirmed.

And when you see what happens when the Holy Spirit works and moves is that it draws people together.

It never pushes people away to individualize people.

And so while personal worship is of vital importance, it is very important for us to remember this morning that Jesus Christ nor God ever created you to do it alone.

You cannot do it alone. It's impossible. Satan wants you to be alone. Satan wants to isolate you because when Satan can get you alone and he can get you away from other believers, there's no accountability.

There's no camaraderie. There's no understanding of am I the only one dealing with this? Am I the only one thinking about this?

Am I the only one struggling with this? There's no ability to ask and have those conversations with other people.

So Satan very much wants to isolate us.

So point number two this morning is that Jesus led by example.

When we talk about going to church and what it means to gather with other people who believe in God and believe in Jesus Christ, understand today that Jesus never asked us to do one thing that he was not willing to do himself.

And so even though Jesus did a lot of ministry out on the roads, the highways and the byways, that was a regular part of Jesus's life.

He did so much stuff out in the community and out in the town and out in the wilderness, yes, but he was also very much involved in the temple and the synagogues where people gathered to worship.

And in John chapter 18 verse 20, when Jesus is on trial and the religious leaders are accusing him of all these ridiculous things that he did, look at what Jesus said.

John 18:20

Jesus replied, everyone knows what I teach.

I have preached regularly in the synagogues and the temple where the people gather.

I have not spoken in secret.

And when you dig through the gospels, there's so many examples of Jesus being in the synagogues and being in the temple and doing certain things to promote this understanding and leading his disciples with the example of,

we're going to participate in worship together.

And that even I, the Son of God, I'm willing to submit to this process that he was willing to do stuff like pay the temple tax, even though he was the Son of God,

that he was willing to go, he was willing to do, he participated in all the festivals and the celebrations.

And there's a lot of stuff that you may look at in Christianity and think, why do we do that? It's just, we do this all the time.

What's the point? And Jesus did everything that was just like people were asking, what's the point? Why do they do this? What are they doing this for? And Jesus did everything.

Jesus did not neglect one aspect of the law, one aspect of serving God, one aspect of being with other people who claim faith in God.

Remember, Jesus never asked us to do one thing that he was not willing to do.

Jesus had no home, he had no money, he spent his life serving others, he followed God's law and perfect obedience, he suffered, he died,

and he went to corporate gathering places to participate in worship.

He led by example. And when people begin to question, like, why church? What's the need? Why do I need to go to church?

Can I not just worship God? Can I not just pray with God? It's like, absolutely, you most certainly can.

But the audacity that people have to question something that Jesus Christ started and initiated and birthed into existence,

that he felt it was so necessary that he was even willing to leave here and ascend to the Father to send the Holy Spirit so that all this could happen because it's better for you.

Your creator knows what's better for you and me. And he says it's better for you that I go so that all this can happen.

And you can experience what it's like. And so the fact that people question something that Jesus himself set the example in,

that takes a lot of audacity to do that. And I think a lot of times people question it not trying to be disrespectful to God,

but when you really begin reading scripture and understanding why God set all this in place and the fact that it's for our benefit,

it's kind of like a kid saying, why can't I walk to my friend's house on the other side of Spartanburg?

And as a kid, they don't understand because they don't understand what's out there, what the dangers are in them.

Point number three, you can't replace corporate worship either.

You know, you can't replace personal worship, but you can't replace corporate worship. Both are very much necessary.

One of the greatest realizations that we'll have as Christians is when we understand how important it is for us to worship and gather together with other believers.

That's a huge realization. Many people for many reasons do not like the idea of surrendering to that aspect of following Christ.

And you got to think about what you're resisting. You got to think about what they're resisting.

I mean, because the church, the church, the body of Christ, the kingdom of God, the thing that Jesus Christ bled and died to birth into existence,

and even charged Peter said, upon this rock, I will build my church.

The thing that he set into motion for us to question that, that's a hard issue. It's a surrender issue.

And so while there may be a lot of things like, you know, under the surface that people are dealing with and questioning,

really, when you look at someone and say, I don't need to go to church, I worship God just fine, I'm on by myself, blah, blah, blah.

That's, that's a hard issue. It is a thing in their life that they have not been able to see clearly and understand what God really wants for them.

And the fact that God knows what's best for them and us.

In Luke chapter five, verses 31 through 32, Jesus answered them, healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do.

I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know that they are sinners and need to repent.

Even with sin, or even with just submitting to all things that God calls us to do,

there's an attitude of submission and humbleness that as believers we're supposed to have to just,

a lot of times just dive into things that God's calling us to do because we don't understand them.

And you're not going to understand everything.

And I would love to be able to sit here and say, well, you're going to be able to sit down with this person and have this conversation

and explain to them why they need to be at church and next week they're going to come because it's going to be clear as day.

Because truthfully, people so many times just have to step out in faith and trust in God and do what God's asking them to do.

And once they do it, it's almost like the blinders are removed and it's like, now I get it. Now I understand.

One of the passages of Scripture that stuck out to me here lately is Paul.

When he's talking about following Christ, you know, Paul was wealthy.

Paul had, he was very high up in leadership in Jerusalem, in the Jewish law.

I mean, he was a dual citizen of Rome. He was also a Jewish person.

I mean, he had everything you could want for a man in his place of life.

And when he talked about all the things that he sacrificed for believing in Christ, he said, I look back on it.

He said, I counted all this garbage. It's all rubbish. It's nothing.

And in the beginning, it probably felt like a lot.

And so many times as people, we think about what Christ is asking us to give up or what he's asking us to do.

It's like, well, man, I don't have any time now.

How can I afford to do it every Sunday, go to church?

Because that's just like one or two more hours out of my day, three or four.

If you count how long it takes to get ready and fight the kids to get there, it's like, it's a lot.

And it is a lot.

But you don't realize how valuable and how beneficial it is until you do it.

And you say, now I get it.

There's nothing I can say to convince you of it.

It's a matter of submitting to Jesus and having trust and faith that what he's asking us to do is the right thing.

For you and I, and that we'll just be willing to do it.

So, church, some of the things that it's intended for us as believers do.

Well, it's not something that we feel comfortable with.

You know, when you think about going to church, I can remember going to church as a teenager,

especially before I got saved, it was pretty uncomfortable.

I can remember I wore shorts one time and back then shorts were not cool or acceptable at church.

That was a weird day.

You know, there's a lot of times when you initially begin going to do something that you're not familiar with or not,

it's not a comfortable thing.

It's not something that you're necessarily confident in.

You're not going to step into it or convince someone that's like, you can come to this and most people are not going to be like,

yep, I absolutely believe in this, I'm going to be there.

No, they're a little hesitant, not super confident in it, not super confident of how it's going to benefit us in certain ways.

It's not going to be something we understand.

I remember going to church, there was a lot of stuff I did not understand early on.

People would talk about passages of Scripture, a lot of times people would preach messages and talk about stuff I had no idea, did not understand.

It's not something that we can contribute to.

When I first started going to church, I couldn't contribute to anything.

I was just there.

I sat in a seat, I listened, I didn't say anything because I was scared I was always going to say something wrong or inappropriate or, you know, make somebody mad like I could not contribute a thing.

And just to understand it's a state of surrender.

Like you do it, not because it's necessarily you feel the greatness of it.

You do it just because you say, okay, people say this is the right thing to do, I'm going to do this because people are saying it's the right thing to do.

I believe in this, I'm going to do it.

And that was kind of weird for a while.

But eventually, it is something we grow into.

You do feel more comfortable with it, but that's anything in life.

Something you do more, you feel more comfortable with.

Something you do less, you don't feel as comfortable with it.

I had to grill out on 4th of July, that's like the third time I've ever grilled before.

I did not feel very comfortable.

I hope my family was not sick.

But hey, we did it.

It's something we find confidence in.

You know, eventually, as you do corporate worship and you attend church and you submit yourself in that way, you do find confidence in it.

Getting up on a Sunday morning is not nearly as weird and out there.

You feel a little more confident going and being and being accepted.

The third thing is it's something we begin to understand.

You know, each church has its own personality.

You know, what Graham Chapel is like on a Sunday morning is very different from other churches in the community and other churches around the state and the nation and the world.

And so when you walk into a new place, it's always going to be different.

But the more you go, the more familiar you get with it, the more comfortable, the more you begin to understand.

And it's something that we can eventually contribute to.

And I think that's really important a lot of times, something that we miss.

Church can be very mundane when we're not putting skin in the game.

And there's a big difference between just showing up at church on a Sunday morning and then serving inside the church in some capacity.

Huge difference in that.

Huge difference in the importance and the ownership and how you feel about what's going to happen.

And even your your attitude as to whether or not like the quality of stuff and things that are going on, like you have a completely different understanding of it.

So, for example, our worship team, very thankful lightning struck your last Sunday night.

Wiped out the sound board.

We were here for several hours Wednesday night, several hours Thursday morning, several hours Thursday night.

And then again here this morning, straightening out the kinks, redoing everything, messing with wires, reprogramming stuff.

I mean, like when you think about people having skin in the game, it's not just what you see.

It's not like these guys just get up on stage and they play and they're just great.

Something like that people practice.

They're devoting tons of time and tons of energy into these things.

And so as we go, we eventually begin to contribute.

And then eventually it still remains an act of submitting.

So even though you get comfortable with it and you begin to understand it like it's still an act of submitting.

Because then you're submitting to one another, you're submitting to relationships, you're submitting to accountability.

And again, your commitment to what Christ has set up.

And I say this, I would love for you guys to be as committed to Graham Chapel as much as God intended for you to be.

But if Graham Chapel is a place that you cannot be committed at, then I encourage you to go somewhere where you can be.

Because I believe it would be more beneficial for you and the kingdom of God as a whole.

For you to go to a church that you could be committed in versus just sitting here in the chair and us getting to count you as a number.

That's not beneficial to anyone. It's not beneficial to you, it's not beneficial to us.

It's very important for us to be contributing to the kingdom of God, to the church, to the body of Christ.

And lastly, this is provisionally.

You know, provision is a temporary thing leading to the permanent.

When we talk about church, when we talk about the kingdom of God, everything that Christ has called us to do in this world,

it's a provisional thing, it's a temporary thing leading us to an eternal plan that Christ has for us.

And so when you talk about this idea of not feeling comfortable and then growing into it, but also preparing you for eternity,

one of the things that so many Christians talk about is the thought of death still scares us, right?

I mean, it does, because we have scripture, we believe in God, we believe in eternal life,

but the thought of just closing our eyes and crossing over to that other side, that's something different.

And so even the act of worshipping together with one another, it brings a comfort into our life to prepare for eternity.

It gives us opportunity to have those conversations with other people, and then it gives us the confidence in eternal life.

To question it.

So many people question it, man, am I doing all this for nothing?

Is heaven really real, God? Is all this real?

And if you ask that question, you're not alone, other people ask the question too.

And other people who are out there who haven't committed their lives to church yet, I guarantee you they're asking that question, God, are you real?

Speak to me, show me, prove to me, and I'll come.

And God did not call us to follow Him by proving Himself to us.

God called us to step out in faith and follow Him through faith.

And what I found is, as we follow Christ in faith, He begins to reveal Himself to us in very, very powerful ways.

And so as a Christian 20 years down the road from what I was when I first got saved,

I understand and believe in God so much more clearly and confidently than I did in the beginning.

But yeah, there's still doubts and there's still questions, there's still things that I don't understand,

but it's a lot stronger than what it was when I first believed.

And God continues to reveal Himself in powerful ways as we continue to move forward in this.

It gives us understanding for eternal things, which is really intimidating.

I don't know if you guys have ever done this, but if you start looking up stuff about heaven in Scripture,

there's not a whole lot of descriptive things about heaven, and that has a huge impact on us.

And so giving us understanding for eternal things.

And then the fourth is getting ready to contribute in the eternal kingdom.

You ever just sit back and think about what am I going to do in heaven?

Like I've always laughed because the song says when we've been there 10,000 years,

and people always say, well, we're just going to be worshipping God for the first 10,000 years.

And even as a pastor, I'm like, oh, after an hour, I'm ready to go.

That doesn't sound that appealing.

But even like the description of worshipping and participating in the kingdom,

and even to understand what Christ has set up for the kingdom,

to even know something is simple of not everyone's going to get the same thing.

People will be rewarded and honored differently in heaven for their service

and their sacrifice and their commitment to Christ.

And we'll see that in eternity.

And the idea of being fully surrendered.

Worshiping with other believers prepares you for the eternal life that we all so desperately want.

I think if you're sitting here this morning, you say, man, I want to go to heaven.

I want to have eternal life.

It's like, do you really?

Do you really want eternal life?

Because this takes us to point four.

This is our bonus point. It's our last one this morning.

Point number four is heaven is mostly described with corporate worship.

Now, I'll be the first one to tell you on Sunday morning, I'm ready to go home.

I don't eat. I'm hungry. I'm hangry.

I'm emotionally and socially like I'm spent like I'm an introvert by nature.

So talking to all of you on Sunday morning, that exhausts me.

I'm ready to go home.

But when you read scripture and you talk about heaven and you think about what's heaven going to be like,

it is very much described with the idea of corporate worship.

So let's look at Revelation five, eleven to fourteen of what God gave him

and what he saw that was happening in heaven.

He says, then I looked again and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around us,

the throne around the throne, sorry, and of the living beings and the elders.

They sang in a mighty chorus, worthy is the lamb who was slaughtered to receive power

and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea.

They sang blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne

and to the lamb forever and ever.

And the four living beings said, Amen, and the twenty four elders fell down and worshiped the lamb.

Getting an idea of what heaven is going to be like.

Skip to chapter seven, verse eleven.

It says in the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings

and they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and they worshiped God.

So much of what we read about heaven involves this aspect of everything worshipping God together.

And so when we talk about why church and we talk about this whole aspect of worship

and this whole idea of church being this provisional thing, make no mistake about it,

when Jesus Christ saved you from your sins and he called you to follow him

and he called you to be obedient to all of his teachings.

Because to say that you believe in Christ, it's not just don't just believe he existed.

It's very easily you can very easily prove that Jesus Christ existed.

Like it's in secular documents. It's not just in the Bible. It's in secular documentation.

We know Jesus existed. It's irrefutable.

So it's not just a matter of saying you believe in him.

But when you say that you believe in Jesus Christ, you don't just believe that he existed.

You believe in his teachings. You believe that what he said was true.

And when you believe in Jesus and you believe that he's going to be the one to give you eternal life

because you belong to him, understand that everything about your life from the time you claim faith in him

is this provisional aspect of leading you to the point of preparing you

to step across that threshold from the physical world to the spiritual world.

Where you are not just going from this world where you don't have this understanding of God's Spirit

and all of a sudden you're in his presence, but you are filled with God's Spirit.

His law is very evident and present in your life.

The conviction, the guilt that he puts in us which so many people run from

is in your life and empowers you to be obedient

so that when you cross that threshold from the physical world to the eternal world

and you stand in God's presence, that you are fully prepared to stand there with confidence.

Having to sit and talk with people who are very close to making that journey,

one of the biggest things they'll say is,

I'm scared or I'm nervous or I don't know what to expect.

And of the 30 something funerals that I've helped with or done myself,

there's been very few people who have sit there knowing what's about to come

within a day or two who are confident about making that transition

and understanding that the way you live and the obedience and submission

that you have in your life for the things that Christ has called us to do

with something as simple as worship in church,

it is preparing you to step into the presence of God himself

with confidence and readiness to live in what it's going to be.

And if you are uncomfortable or miserable sitting in a church,

think about how uncomfortable or miserable you would be standing before God himself

when everyone's hollering and screaming and praising

and bowing down and worshiping him and casting their crowns before him

and there's all kinds of stuff going on and then there's judgment taking place.

How confident are you going to be to stand before God on that day

when church is this major issue that you can't

or the person that you're praying for and inviting to can't overcome that thing?

These are provisional things that prepare us for eternity.

That's what it's for.

There's a reason.

There's a reason why some people get excited to go to church.

You ever notice that?

Some people are excited to go.

Some people are ready.

Some people are excited to be in church.

And there's a difference in them and there's a difference in other people.

And we know it and we see it and we feel it.

And what do you think it's going to be like whenever it's time to stand before the Lord?

And eternity's here and judgment's here.

And how happy and confident are we going to be to stand before our Heavenly Father?

So why are you at church this morning?

Why are you inviting other people to church on Sunday morning?

That's a question that only you can answer. Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for your word and your love and your mercy.

And thank you for your faithfulness.

Lord, when you died on the cross for our sins, you knew there was something major

that we needed in our lives.

You knew that we were not ready to stand before the Father.

And even when we ask Jesus into our heart

and we have forgiveness of sin, there are still so many things in our life

that need to be dealt with and cleansed and purified.

And Lord, help us to be humble and remember that everything you have called us to do

are provisional measures to prepare us for what is to come.

And we pray that your Holy Spirit would speak powerfully to us in this moment,

that you would speak powerfully to us throughout the week,

and Lord, that we would be willing to give ourselves to you,

even when we don't understand it, because we believe with all of our hearts

that you have our best interests in mind.

Even as you said in John 6, it is better for you that I go away.

You know what's best for us, and help us to remember that

and believe it with all that we are.

We love you, and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.