Assembling with the Faithful

COVID-19 Has Affected Our Assemblies

Congregation’s Digital Presence

10% Did Before Covid

10% Don’t Now

Spoiler Alert: (where we will wind up) Watching services online is not the same as being there.

Tack Chumbley: Virtual assembly is life support. Virtual assembly is 2D. People are 3D.

Face time is valuable, but not the same as holding the grandchild on your lap.

Assembling with the Faithful:

Past

Future

Present

Assemblies Were Important in the OT.

Sabbath assembly regularly, and thrice per year a pilgrimage feast in Jerusalem (Passover, Ingathering, Booths) Corporate worship was important in the OT.

Families Assembled to Worship in Genesis

Genesis 31:54

Genesis 31:54 ESV

and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country.

Sabbath assembly by family, and

Exodus 20:9-10

Exodus 20:9–10 ESV

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

Thrice per year a pilgrimage feast in Jerusalem (Passover, Ingathering, Booths)

Exodus 23:17

Exodus 23:17 ESV

Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.

Psalm 149:1-2

Psalm 149:1–2 ESV

Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly! Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!

Psalm 149:9 ESV

to execute on them the judgment written! This is honor for all his godly ones. Praise the Lord!

3 Reasons to Assemble

Reason 1: God Commands It

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Emergency situations, like weather, can interrupt services.

Sunday is not the 2nd day of the weekend. Sunday is the first day of the week.

Worship service on Sunday should be your reason for missing everything else.

Do you worship when there is nothing better to do? There is nothing better to do!

Psalm 100 ESV

A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Reason 2: Because it is inconvenient.

Jeroboam used convenience to keep Israel from worshipping properly.

1 Kings 12:28–29 ESV

So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

David’s servant was going to make the sacrifice he would offer convenient (and cheap).

2 Samuel 24:24 ESV

But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

Real love takes work and makes demands on us.

There are many things that cannot be communicated virtually.

Example of the husband choosing to do what is convenient to celebrate an anniversary.

Reason 3: You can’t serve others from your couch.

Hebrews 10:22-25

Hebrews 10:22–25 ESV

let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

101 year old brother, stone deaf, who never missed a service.

“If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go together.”

2 Questions about Assembling

Question 1: Should we attend and ignore the health risk?

Rom 15:4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Consider the Law of the Leper in Leviticus 13. Much of the chapter concerns diagnosis. But consider the passage that deals with treatment or behavioral changes.

Leviticus 13:45–46 ESV

“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.

Wear torn clothes, Hair hang loose (signs of grief)

Cover upper lip (mask)

Cry out, unclean. (to permit social distancing (physical distancing))

Dwelling outside the camp. (quarantine, concern for others)

Note: This was done by the afflicted one, not the entire population.

Note: Leprosy was visually diagnosed. COVID evidently is contagious prior to symptoms.

Can we assume that if they could have “Zoomed” the assembly, they would have?

Question 2: What about Matthew 18:20

Matthew 18:20 ESV

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Note: This says 2 or 3, not 2 or more.

Context of Matthew 18:20 is church discipline, not regular assembly. This not talking about the minimum number of an assembly of the saints.