We Are Worshipers: A Theology of Church Attendance

Behold He Comes

Welcome (Sterling Tollison)

Scripture Reading (Hebrews 10:23-25)

Prayer of Praise (God is Savior), Phoebe Garcia

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

I Will Glory in My Redeemer

Prayer of Confession (lust), Sam Garcia

How Great Thou Art

PBC Catechism #32

How important is the local church?

We believe the local church is central to God’s plan for believers.

Pastoral Prayer (Mike Klaassen)

SERMON

Family dinners matter.

Researchers have shown that the time-tested tradition of a family gathering around a dinner table talking to one another has a host of positive benefits.

Dinnertime conversations are proven to increase vocabulary even more than reading books aloud to your children.[1]

Want to know the easiest way to predict high achievement scores among middle and high schoolers? Don’t look first to the time spent at school or doing homework. Look at their family’s mealtime habits.[2]

Additional benefits of family dinners include an overall healthier lifestyle, reduction of symptoms in various medical disorders, decreased anxiety, lower likelihood of high-risk teenage behaviors like smoking, binge drinking, marijuana use, and more. These benefits have led one Harvard professor to conclude that family dinners are “the most important thing you can do with your kids.”[3]

Family dinners matter more than many people think.

The same is true for gatherings at your local church. Showing up matters more than many people think. And yet, like the many families who neglect the healthy habits of a technology-free dinner, there are far too many professing Christians who neglect the importance of regularly gathering with God’s people.

Several years ago, Thom Rainer said this about declining church attendance in America:

“The number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago. Allow me to explain. . . . if 200 members attend every week the average attendance is, obviously, 200. But if one-half of those members miss only one out of four weeks, the attendance drops to 175. Did you catch that? No members left the church. Everyone is still relatively active in the church. But attendance declined over 12 percent because half the members changed their attendance behavior slightly.”[4]

Most Christians would agree that church attendance matters. But far too often our actions speak louder than words. Far too often we say showing up matters, but we act as if it only matters when it’s convenient.

Perhaps what we need is to recapture a good theology of church attendance.

Normal approach: expository preaching through books of the Bible

Today, week 2 of 5-week series on our five identities

We are worshipers

Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 10:23

Written in the early 60s AD to show Christians the supremacy of Christ

Better than angels, Moses, the priests, better covenant, better sacrifice

Not enough to say we believe these things, we must continue in them

Hebrews 10:23-25—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.”

Three Questions About Church Attendance:

Christian: may God use these truths in His Word to help you to think, feel and act rightly about going to church

Unbeliever: you’re sitting in on a family conversation, but we hope to show you one of the ways that you should count the cost before you follow Jesus

1) WHO Should Attend Church?

Question is not, who CAN attend church?

Answer to that question is anybody and everybody!!!

We should welcome anyone who attends

Churches go wrong when they go beyond making everyone welcome to making everyone comfortable

Things at PBC that make unbelievers uncomfortable

Who SHOULD attend church?

Those commanded to not neglect the gathering are the same individuals commanded to “hold fast to their confession of hope.”

This “confession of hope” is nothing less than our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

Not a Christian: what you need is to repent and believe this Gospel!

Christian: this passage is talking to you. It is you who must faithfully gather with God’s people.

Not your agnostic neighbor or your Muslim co-worker. Of course, they’re welcome to attend. And if they do, let’s pray they hear the Gospel and believe it.

But the fact is, church attendance is primarily for the saved, not the lost.

You need church attendance because you claim to be a Christian. And one of the ways God helps you cling to that claim is your faithful attendance.

2) WHY Should We Attend Church?

Kent Hughes—“On the most elementary level, you do not have to go to church to be a Christian. You do not have to go home to be married either. But in both cases if you do not, you will have a very poor relationship.”[6]

There are benefits of going to church for the Christian!

Let’s consider three from the text...

A) It Helps You Hold Onto Hope

v. 23—Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

One of the ways we do that is by “not neglecting to meet together.”

One of the fruits of faithfully gathering with God’s people is a greater grip on the hope of the Gospel.

John Owen—“Whatever reserves men may have in their minds, that they would still continue to believe in Christ though they attended not … in these assemblies, [God] regards it not.”[5]

You may say to yourself “I don’t need to attend church to keep hoping,” but you’d be wrong. If your hope is leaking, perhaps it’s because your grip on God’s people is loosening.

Or you may think you’re holding onto hope just fine, thank you very much. But do not be deceived, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). If you sow a loose grip on God’s people you will reap a loose grip on Gospel hope.

If you want a strong, hope-filled relationship with the Lord, you’ll cultivate a strong habit of faithful attendance to the gatherings in your local church.

B) It Provokes You to Love and Good Works

v. 24—And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works...

I love the way the KJV translates this, “let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.

This can happen in various ways...

The nursery volunteers seem a bit frazzled when you drop off your children before the service, and you’re provoked to be especially encouraging and thankful when you pick the kids up later.

Right after you get settled into your seat a man comes up to you and thanks you for the prayer of confession you led a few weeks ago. He shares how the Lord has given him increased victory over that sin since your prayer.

A fellow church member sitting near you has tears streaming down her face as she sings, “through many dangers toils and snares, I have already come.” You know the year she’s had, and you’re provoked to invite her to lunch after service to see how she’s doing.

The pastor encourages you to meet someone you don’t know, and you take him up on the challenge sparking a new and beautiful friendship.

Notice also that this provocation to love and good works is a two-way street. You’re provoking others and they’re provoking you.

C) It Helps You Persevere

v. 25—“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.”

What “day” is the author of Hebrews referring to? The capitalization in many English translations should give us a hint.

This is the Day, the day when Christ returns and makes all things new.

The closer we get to that Day, the more we need encouragement from one another to persevere.

A few days before His crucifixion, Jesus gathered with His disciples on the Mount of Olives and taught them about the end of the age. He says in...

Matthew 24:12—“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

Isn’t that interesting? The nearer we get to that Day, the more lawlessness will increase and love will decrease. The closer we get to the return of Christ, the harder it becomes to love.

That feels like our world, doesn’t it?

In the next verse Jesus says something startling. Let’s look at both verses together to get the full sense:

Matthew 24:12-13—“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Christian, you are called to endure, to persevere until the end. And that includes persevering in love. And God has chosen His people as the means to help you continue.

One pastor put it this way: “We desperately need the church for love, for maturity and preparedness, for spiritual care. It is arrogant, rebellious, self-reliant, God-indicting pride to conclude that the church is an optional extra to the Christian life. We need everything God designs for us. Everything. To reject what God designs for His glory and our good is spiritual suicide. To reject the church is to take your own spiritual life.” [7]

Kevin DeYoung—"The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.” [8]

If you won’t faithfully persevere with God’s people, why would your kids?

3) HOW Should We Attend Church?

A) Attend Consistently

v. 25—“not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some”

John Owen’s two types of neglect: [9]

Total Neglect

There are those whose absence from God’s people is so egregious that it seems to indicate they are not truly born again.

To put it bluntly, those able-bodied members who rarely or never darken the doors of the church may not be saved.

By able-bodied we mean those who could attend but choose not to. Not referring to deployed military personnel, homebound saints, those away at college, etc.

1 John 2:19—They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Partial Neglect

These are men and women who do not prioritize the assembly as they should but have not forsaken it entirely.

At our church, our elders consider this type of non-attender to be those able-bodied members who are absent more than they are present. These men and women need to be pursued, confronted, and encouraged.

How often can I miss without being guilty of one of these types of neglect? Can I skip once a month? Twice a month? Three times?

These are the wrong questions. This is trying to find out where the line is, then getting as close to the line as you can without crossing it.

Questions like these come from a heart that wants to do the bare minimum.

Instead of asking “how often can I miss church and be okay?” a better question would be “when is missing church appropriate?”

Consistency is better than intensity

Explain

B) Attend Deliberately

v. 24—And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works...

Two verbs in this verse: consider and stir up

“Consider” = Deliberate Thoughtfulness

Not a call to attend thinking deeply about the deep truths of God (although that’s certainly not a bad thing)

This is a call to attend thinking deliberately about your brothers and sisters

Do you know them? Do you know their needs? Do you know where they might be tempted? Do you attend church thinking about yourself or your church family?

“Stir up” = Deliberate Action

Not enough to merely think about each other, but to act for one another’s good

Am I attending as a consumer or as a contributor?

C) Attend Physically

v. 25—“...but encouraging one another,...”

In the physical gathering we encourage one another. Now sure, you might be encouraged by the livestream

But this is supposed to be a two-way street. You’re encouraged and encouraging

Very difficult to do this without physical presence

Think of all the ways you can encourage physically that you can’t encourage remotely...

Handshake, hug, eye contact, smile, conversation, etc.

One of the ways we encourage one another is by our singing...

Colossians 3:16—Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Remember how awful singing was in your living room during the spring of 2020?

As Jay Kim writes, “online church” offers information not transformation, content not community, communication not communion. [10]

As someone else put it, the church is “a body, not a broadcast.”

I AM NOT SAYING...

A livestream is wrong

A livestream isn’t helpful

It’s just not a substitute for the encouragement of the physical gathering

D) Attend Strategically

I’ve heard pastors berate their members (sometimes even from the pulpit) for not showing up to Sunday School, Sunday morning worship, Sunday night worship, Tuesday night visitation, Wednesday night prayer meeting, Thursday night small group, Saturday morning outreach, and more. Show up every time the doors are open, or you’ve forsaken the assembly.

I don’t believe churches have the authority to cram their calendars full of time-consuming events and rebuke their members if they don’t attend all of them.

I don’t attend every PBC event available to me!

So we need to be strategic in what church events we attend...

#1—Main weekly worship gathering

This is where we use our spiritual gifts, flesh out the one another commands, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and hear God speak to us in His Word.

The same cannot be said for a Sunday School class or a special event for men, women, or teens

Not saying those other meetings are unimportant (a church shouldn’t have them if they are), but they are not important to the same degree.

When we consistently see members absent here, the elders get concerned

#2—Members meetings

Once a quarter on Sunday nights, one next week

Why? Because at PBC it’ll be hard to fulfill your responsibilities as a church member without them (I’ll explain why next Sunday)

I would go as far to say that a PBC member should not miss these meetings unless they’re providentially hindered (sick, away, working, etc.)

#3—Fellowship Groups

Why? Because at PBC this is one of the main pathways for building relationships in the church

You’re going to have a hard time obeying the “one another” commands in the church if there’s a bunch of people you don’t know

And it’s hard to get to know a bunch of people without taking baby steps

#4—Consider your bandwidth, responsibilities, and needs

Might mean nothing else, you just can’t handle anything more

Might mean a discipleship group because you really need the accountability or a Sunday School class so you can learn

Might mean other things because of your responsibilities as a Sunday School teacher, volunteer, elder, deacon, or staff member

If you have a bunch of free time, it could be all the above!

E) Attend Joyfully

Imagine I said to one of the men after service, “I love you bro, but I can’t stand your wife! I’ll tolerate her if I have to, but I’m not going to like it. She’s annoying, she’s hypocritical, she’s messy, she’s a lot of work, etc.

How would you respond? Hopefully you wouldn’t let me get away with that sort of disrespect! If I truly love you, I’ll love your bride.

So too with Jesus. If we love Him, we’ll love His bride.

1 John 4:20-21—If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Mere church attendance without a joy-filled love for His people means nothing.

Examine yourself, do you love His people?

Family dinners matter.

We need the frequency of week after week, gathering with God’s people to feast on His Word together

We also need the special family dinner that reminds us of the gospel, called the Lord’s Supper

On the night Jesus was betrayed…

…as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

2000 years later, Christians all over the world continue to observe this meal to remind ourselves and one another that we are forgiven, not by our own works but by the work of Jesus on the cross in our place.

The bread we eat represents Jesus’ body, given to ransom His people.

The cup we drink represents Jesus’ blood, poured out to forgive our sins.

If you haven’t been forgiven, if you’re not a Christian, we respectfully ask you not to take the Lord’s Supper with us.

We invite you to receive Jesus, not the symbol that reminds us of Jesus.

You can ask any one of our pastors about that at one of the tables and we’ll stop what we’re doing to talk and pray with you about what it means to follow Jesus.

If you believe you’re a Christian but you haven’t followed Jesus in believer’s baptism or in membership at a gospel-preaching local church, please talk to one of our pastors before you leave here today.

We want something bigger and better for you than a symbolic meal.

We want you to enjoy a life of obedience as a follower of Jesus. And that journey begins with believer’s baptism and membership in a local church.

But first, we’re going to stand and sing a few verses together and give our families a moment to pick up their children from PBC Kids so our volunteers can join us in this family meal.

PRAY

O Church Arise (2 verses)

LORD’S SUPPER

Elders come to the table, while I explain how we celebrate the Lord’s Supper at PBC…

JESUS AND YOU MOMENT as you pray silently, preparing your heart

Sit and pray as long as you need.

Confess sin to God and (if necessary) to others

PRAISE HIM FOR HIS GRACE!!!

JESUS AND OTHERS MOMENT as you come to the table

When you’re ready, walk towards the front and gather around a table

One of our pastors will pray over you and others with you

Eat the bread at the table, then bring your cup back to your seat

JESUS AND EVERYBODY MOMENT as we take the cup

Once everyone has taken the bread, we’ll take the cup together

Please pray with me, then when you’re ready come to any of the tables

After everyone has had the bread...

Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you and be thankful.

Let’s sing together

O Church Arise

Benediction (Eph. 3:20-21)