Wednesday Evening | The Gathering | Art Schnitzer
by Art Schnitzer
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Hebrews 10:23-25, Exodus 20:8-9, Psalm 122:1, Luke 4:16, Acts 2:42, Acts 2:46, James 4:17, Psalm 100:2, Psalm 100:4, Jeremiah 36:6, 1 Timothy 4:13, Romans 10:17, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Ephesians 4:16, Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 John 4:20, 1 John 1:7, Ephesians 4:11-12, Hebrews 13:17, 1 Corinthians 14:26, Matthew 18:20, Psalm 22:3, Matthew 18:19, Leviticus 26:8, Acts 4:31, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, Acts 20:7, Acts 5:42, Psalm 27:4

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/art-schnitzer--wednesday-evening-the-gathering
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Well, praise the Lord. It's good to see everybody tonight on this Wednesday night. Little cool weather, little fall weather coming in, which is nice. And uh I hope all of you are ready for a Bible study. >> Everybody ready to study the word because that's what I do. I do I teach. I do not preach. No one will be running the aisles tonight unless you're having to leave quickly for some reason. I don't expect anybody to run the aisle, but we are going to we are going to study the word tonight. Give honor to our pastor and pastoral family and uh wish them well on their little getaway. And it seems like a lot of people have gone away. I I obviously did not get the memo that this was vacation week. So, I'm I'm here. And so we're going to get into the word tonight. Thank you all for coming. This is really a great crowd. Many more than I had anticipated during this fall break time. Um I will read a scripture and then I will explain to you why I'm reading this scripture and talking about this this topic tonight. We're going to read in Hebrews chap 10 verses 23-2. Very familiar scripture to everyone in this church. which is talked about a lot. Says, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching." Pray with me. Lord, we love you tonight. We thank you for this privilege of coming to the house of God. We ask that you would help us as we dig into your word, that you would strengthen our understanding of this subject that I'm going to talk about tonight. God, your word is anointed. Help me to deliver it so that it stays anointed. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Um last week, last Wednesday, if you were here, you'll recall our pastor really uh pressing on the idea and talking about the idea of his love of the house of God, the importance of the house of God, his loving to come to church. And so with that section of what he was talking about, he was really teaching on another another lesson on tithing and giving uh in a series. But I'm kind of hopping on the coattails of those statements that he made tonight because we often hear this scripture in Hebrews 10 that uh forsaking not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is. And we we we leave it at that. We leave it at that. So, I'm going to unpack it and dig into it a little bit deeper tonight if that's okay. Now, many I had many many years of sales training and then uh before I had my own business and even had to use a lot of that sales training in my own business because I was the major salesman in my in my own business. And one of the things that you learn in sales training is uh how to close a sale. you are wasting your time to give a great sales presentation and not have the closing skills to be able to close close the sale. And so you had to learn to discover the objection, isolate the objection, and then once you isolate it, you had to bury the objection is the the language that's used. You had to bury the objection. And so tonight, I want to attempt to bury the objection that people may use to why they don't come to the house of God faithfully. Is that all right? >> All right. So, the life of a true Christian is radically different from the life of an individual who is not a disciple of Jesus Christ. And one of the chief ways it differs uh one of the great differences is between genuine Christians and someone who just calls themsself a Christian is the amount of time that we spend and focus on assembling together coming to the house of God. If you've been an apostolic for any length of time, you probably have at some point in from a neighbor, a co-orker, somebody, family member, they might have asked you, "Man, you guys go to church a lot. You go to church twice on Sunday. You go to church in the middle of the week. You guys go to church a lot." And they they may comment something to that effect. The New Testament makes it very clear that consistent attendance in the house of the Lord is more than just a tradition. It's more than just a tradition. It is a scripturally mandated practice that has been followed by Christians for almost 2,000 years now. In both the Old and New Testament, the necessity necessity of setting aside a day each week or several days each week to come together to worship uh is not only emphasized and strongly encouraged, but it is commanded. It's commanded. If we look at Exodus 8, I'm sorry, Exodus 20:es 8 and N looking back in the Old Testament says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. Now, we we meet and I'll talk about it later. We meet on the first day of the week. We meet on Sunday, which is actually the first day of the week. And we're not doing just any dishonor to the word by not meeting on the Sabbath because we know that uh the Sabbath is our is now our rest in the Holy Ghost. This is this is that rest that he spoke of. Uh it was talked about in the Old Testament. So the day of the week we meet does not matter. Traditionally the Christians in even even in scripture and we'll see that met on the first day of the week. The idea that I'm getting at and pulling from the Old Testament is that it was mandated by the Lord in the law that we would work for six days or do whatever we do in the world for six days and set aside a day that we would call it the day a day to worship the Lord. Whether you call it a Sabbath or whatever you want to call it, we just call it Sunday, Sunday service or our Sunday meetings. But there was it was mandated that a day should be set aside to worship the Lord and to focus on specifically the thing the things of God. Um the attitude of the faithful Jews concerning this weekly gather gathering was expressed by David the psalmist in Psalms 122 and verse one where he said I was glad when they said unto me let us go to the house of the Lord. There was a there was an excitement about it. There was an expectation about going to the house of the Lord. For the Hebrews, gathering together in the house of the Lord for worship was not to be considered a burden or a a duty or a responsibility. It was expected that these times worshiping together would be a time of joy. It would be a time of enjoyment in the house of the Lord worshiping together. Jesus also was faithful in his attendance to the house of the Lord. Even though he was God robed in flesh, he still thought it important on regular on a regular basis to attend the house of God. He came. Luke 4:16 says, "He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read." Now that word custom from the Greek, a closer word that we would understand even better than custom for that word from the Greek would be habit. It was his habit to go to the house of the Lord. Just like all of us here, I believe for the most part it is our habit to come to the house of the Lord, to be faithful to the house of God. And let me preface what I'm teaching tonight with understanding. I'm not teaching this probably to most of the people who are in this room right now. I'm teaching this in a for the the the sole purpose that we have some ammo. We have some understanding when the temptation comes to miss out on a service to feel like we don't need to come to the house of God anymore which is very very popular in today's world because of the uh electronic and capabilities that we have the digital capabilities we have for online services and streaming and so forth. It's become something that is very popular. So, you hear it a lot from people that have excuses of why they do not attend a church service. And so, I want to talk about those things. That's what I'm addressing tonight. I want us to see clearly there are not just one or two reasons we need to be faithful to the house of God. There are a lot of reasons given scripturally that we need to meet together as an assembly. There's a lot of reasons that we need to understand that especially as scripture said as we see the day approaching. And how many see the day approaching? I I see that day approaching where we're going to see the coming of the Lord. Acts 2:42 early church. We have a doctrine from the early church. We're apostolics. We don't just pull Acts 2:38, I would hope, from the book of Acts and talking about the early church. We want we would want to align ourselves as closely as we could with the the ways and the customs and the teaching from the early church. Not just the way we baptized, not just worshiping one God, but understanding all they put into their assembling together and why they did what they did. Acts 2:42 says they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. Acts 2:46 they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. So, not only did the original Christians set a precedent of continuing in the apostles doctrine and prayer, they also continued steadfastly in regular corporate worship and fellowshipping together. In the early very early years of the first church, there were no designated church buildings and consequently the believers who were primarily Jews of course originally met in the Jewish temple fellowshipping in the Jewish temple for their corporate worship. Eventually though the Christians uh were no longer welcome in the temple and at this point they began to worship together in homes or open air spaces. Open air spaces just outdoors but away from public view because they were being persecuted greatly. So in 112 AD, 80 years after the birth of the church, Ply the Younger, the Roman governor of Bethnia, Pontis, wrote this about the Christians. quote, he said that the Christians were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day and singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god. That was from Ply his his observation. Ply states that this regular gathering together was the normal habit or custom of the early Christians. As persecution of the church increased, the early Christians faced imprisonment and death if they were caught worshiping together. However, the very devout believers considered gathering together for worship to be so important and so necessary that they did so in spite of potentially losing their life for doing so. They would meet in areas to worship that were underground tombs and catacombs. Unfortunately, in many countries of the world, even today, Christians risk imprisonment if they are caught meeting together for worship. Recently, I don't know if you know what's going on in some parts of Africa, but in Nigeria, to give you an example, the Muslims have killed from between January and July, they have brutally killed 7,000 87 Christians for coming together to worship. In our world today, with our liberty and freedom to worship comes a great responsibility. For to whomsoever much is given, much will be required. Ply the younger called the weekly worship meetings of the first century a habit or a custom. However, the book of Hebrews takes the practice beyond the realm of just a habit. The scripture places corporate worship in the category of a declaration or a decree. It declares boldly Paul the apostle did not mince words. He did not make suggestions. He did not do you ought to. Right? When Paul spoke, he meant business. And he said not the forsaking of the assembling of ourselves together. So, it's not just a good suggestion or a good habit. It is God's specific and clearly expressed will for all believers. Again, I'm saying this emphatically to you folks because we understand we we meet people and hear from people that don't believe what we're talking about. They so simply don't believe that it's necessary to attend a church. Now, we're going to get into many reasons why that's a that's false reasoning. But, um, if you can understand, and of course, this is good information for you if down the road you get tempted to fall into that habit of falling away from church and not attending the house of God or not understanding fully why we assemble together several times a week. uh it it's good for us to understand that but really I'm doing this for us to clearly see the value that we should be getting from meeting together in a in an organized way on se on a several time a week basis attending worship services on a regular and consistent basis is a matter of being obedient to God's word to be unfaithful in church attendance is willfully to willfully disregard what scripture has commanded us to do. James 4:17 says, "Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." If we know to do good and we don't do it, to him it is sin. Even the early church, even in the early church, some were obviously beginning to fall into the bad habit of not meeting together regularly with the local church. Hebrews says that this bad habit was the manner of some. But it also firmly reveals that this kind of behavior was not acceptable. Not acceptable. So people sometimes base their church attendance on how much they think the service or event will benefit them. What can I get out of it? What can I get out of it? It's a common practice to think that going to church is a matter of finding a church that meets their personal perceived needs. Personal perceived needs and then attending that church because they get something out of it. Now, you know, I've been in this almost 50 years and I've been in leadership for probably almost that long and I've worked with a lot of people coming in through Bible studies with disciplehip and so forth. And you get you get to see both sides of the coin when you begin to work with people in a more in a more intimate intimate way. And you would not believe how many times that's exactly what you hear from somebody that begins to fall away. The statement is I don't feel like I'm getting fed here. I'm not I'm not getting fed here is is the statement. So this what's in it for me idea is foreign to the Bible. This is not a what's in it for me situation. Scripture reveals that the gathering of the church is primarily a sacred assembly that gives us the opportunity to honor God with worship to offer thanksgiving to him for salvation and the blessings of life. That's the primary reason. But there's a whole lot more. Our primary motivation for attending services should not be to get but rather to give worship and honor and praise to the almighty God. That's our number one purpose. Psalms 100 verses 2 and 4 says, "Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. be thankful unto him and bless his name. While there are certainly other biblical reasons to gather together for worship, understanding that the primary reason we gather together is to give and not to receive should compel us to be consistent in our worship attendance. The the house of God is a place of instruction. Place of instruction. Jeremiah 36:6. Therefore, go thou and read in the role which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lord's house upon the fasting day, and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul commanded Timothy to teach and preach and to exhort the church. 1 Timothy 4:13, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. He was exhorting him to do this in the assembly, not in his home, to the assembly. The apostle Paul also commanded the church elders in Colassi that after his letter the letter of to the Colossians had been read in the Colossian church it should also be read he says in the church of the Leodysans. So obviously the public gathering of the church in the first century was a place where scripture was read and spiritual teaching and preaching were administered. Likewise, today the corporate gathering of the church is the place where major portion of teaching and instruction in God's word is is conducted. When someone misses services frequently, when they miss frequently or avoid meetings altogether, he or she cannot receive the complete spiritual diet that God has prepared for each local body. As a result, spiritual malttition and weaknesses occur. How many of you knowing other perhaps younger saints in the church have ever heard a lesson or a message go forth from the pulpit and you you say to yourself, "Wow, I was just talking to this person this week. They were going through this situation. If only they would have been here tonight." Anybody ever experienced that? Experienced that? Nobody has. It happens in God gives pastors, teachers, spiritual leaders guidance on what to teach and preach. So just as is it it is necessary to feed our physical bodies continually with the proper food in order to be healthy and strong, so it is important to gather with God's people on a regular basis to hear his word so that we become spiritually healthy. Sometimes we are physically healthy and in our soul in our spiritual body it is not as healthy as our physical body. Romans 10:17 tells us that so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. All right. So it's a place of instruction. It's a place of worship. This place of gathering. Let's look at the church now. more than just a building that we all come to to pay our tithes and offering, give our tithes and offerings and worship the Lord and and hear the word. Let's look at it in a more spiritual sense now, a more spiritual sense, which is really what I'm getting at here, that there's a whole lot more to the assembly as the body of Christ than just people meeting in a building. Okay? In 1 Corinthians 12:es 12-14 and I don't want to read all of this. I'm going to read a few of these scriptures quickly. For as the body is one, you should be familiar with this area of scripture talking about the body being many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body. So also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member but many. In verse 27, it goes on to say, "Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." We are members in particular. A natural physical body is not disconnected and separated but joined together and united. Our body parts in the physical obviously work together in unison through our brain through our nervous system and and so forth. All the systems function in harmony in the body. Paul is indicating that the church coming together, the assembly is the spiritual body of Christ, the spiritual body. Ephesians 4:16, he goes on. It says, "From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." That coming to that coming together, the body being fitly joined together. You cannot be a part of a body fitly joined together if you are not a part of the body. If you don't come together in the assembly, if you are a loose part, if you are a toe at home, if you are an ear at home, right, as Paul indicated, these various parts of the body, it doesn't it doesn't work that way is what is what we're saying. It's got to be interconnected. There is an interconnectedness with with the body of Christ for it to function function properly and for us as individuals to be getting the proper spiritual nourishment that we need to grow and to continue in faith. Each part within the body relies upon that contact and mutual interaction with the other body parts in order to function properly and increase the overall overall health of the body. When a person again neglects gathering together regularly for worship, they effectively discon uh disconnect themselves from the body and separate themselves from what God is doing through and in that local body of believers. In a physical human body, any body part that is separated from the body obviously will eventually die, right? The body part will die. We can't cut off an arm and leave it leave it somewhere and come back and pick it up and think it's going to be alive and just join it to the body again. It does it doesn't work that way. Now, the same is true with the spiritual body. Separation from the spiritual body will inevitably result in spiritual death. If not spiritual death immediately, it will begin a slow process of death because it is not getting the nourishment that it requires to stay healthy. Regardless of how people who stay home and watch televangelists and watch streaming services, there is no way that you can be getting the nourishment that you can when you disconnect yourself from the body. It just doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Think about some of this. You can look at as like common sense. I was thinking about it today. Let's say that you are a college football player. Let's use football as an analogy. A college football player. And uh you you are you're doing well through college. You're you're young and you're you're fine and you're you're you're a teammate and you're doing well in your in your position. Let's say that you are a uh running back. you're doing well in your position and you go from college and you you are brought into the to the pros. You're brought into a pro team. Let's say for example, since I'm from Philadelphia, we'll use the Eagles as an example since they won the Super Bowl last year. We'll just use them for an example. Um so now you you're on the Philadelphia Eagles football team. You're on a pro team, right? And you go to the pro team. You're there and and you decide you're going to get the playbook. You're going to get the uniform. you're going to get the helmet and you're considered a member of the team, but you decide you don't want to go to any practices. You don't want to go to the games on Sunday. You want to watch them from home, right? And let's, you know, and it's a crazy example, but think about it how how ridiculous that would sound even in a natural application, right? So now, let's say that team like we did last year goes to the Super Bowl. Would that individual you think and and let's let's use the analogy of going to the Super Bowl and winning the Super Bowl like making it to heaven, right? Okay. In the spiritual side, would that person who stayed at home and just watched TV, watched the game on TV and he suited up, you know, he put the uniform on every week and he looked at the playbook, but he really wasn't on the field. He wasn't playing. He wasn't doing his part. He wasn't a part of the team, right? So wouldn't wouldn't it make sense that that person there's no way in the world he would be able to take part and get a Super Bowl ring, right? The crown that Paul talked about, right? Paul use sports analogy. So some things that we that we come up against with people who talk about not needing to go to church are really so simplistically ridiculous sometimes it's not worth arguing about. But tonight, I'm just trying to give scriptural proof of how wrong it is and how out of line it is with scripture. When a believer is in spiritual trouble or is facing a serious challenge, Satan will immediately discourage that individual from going to church. It's one of the first things that begin to happen. You begin to get discouraged to go to church. Why would I go to church? Why do I want to go to church? I'm I things are not working out for me. I got problems at work. I lost my job. Whatever. Whatever's going on. First thing that begins to happen is you've began to lose that energy, that that desire to go to church. So often if you're not grounded, those are the temptations that first come. Some of you may have experienced that. I'm sure in a church this size, there are several that have that have experienced that that it's tempting not not to come to church, just to sit out. This is because Satan knows that there is strength, encouragement, restoration, and healing in the body. To be a fully functioning part of the body of Christ, it is necessary to be joined to the body and interact regularly with the other body parts. All right? There's a word in a Greek word in the New Testament. It's uh the word is coinia. Coinia. It's a unique and powerful word in the original Greek of the New Testament. And it aptly describes the community or fellowship that exists between believers in the church. Coinia. Coinia is defined as communion, joint participation, unity, the sharing in which one has in some group or group endeavor, close group participation. The essential meaning of the word quantine embraces the concepts of community, sharing together, and intimacy. The word is used to describe the special type of fellowship that should exist within the church. The fellowship includes community cooperation, teamwork, group participation, and brotherly love. Now, today that word has been translated to fellowship. Fellowship in the New Testament, fellowship. But it goes a lot deeper than what we would maybe casually think or lightly think of fellowship. We could maybe think of fellowship as just two brothers getting together for coffee and they're fellowshipping together or having somebody over for dinner and they're fellowshipping together. Goes a lot it goes a lot deeper than that. Kolania fellowship is the deep spiritual bond bond that binds Christians to each other and to Jesus Christ. It involves sharing one common life within the body of Christ at all levels of existence and experience. spiritual, social, intellectual, economic, etc. No area of life can be excluded in this in this type of fellowship that is taught in the New Testament. In his book, The Bible Church Tradition, author George Florovski says this, "Christianity from the very beginning existed as a corporate reality, as a community. To be Christian meant to belong to the community. Nobody could be Christian by himself as an isolated individual but only together with the brethren in a togetherness with them. Christianity is a common life or a life in common. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one spirit whereby we are all baptized into one body, one body. The Apostle Paul makes his point very clear when he describes the relationship that should exist between believers in the body of Christ. Should exist. Ephesians chapter 2 19 to 22. Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the spirit. You cannot do that isolated and alone. It doesn't happen that way. So the coinia or fellowship talked about in the New Testament is more than just an abstract idea or concept. It involves more than just intangible thoughts or feelings of kindness and and goodwill toward other believers. It involves active physical participation together with other saints of like precious faith. That's what it involves. We cannot escape this truth. One cannot have true fellowship with another believer who is not present. True quantity of fellowship requires the actual gathering together of believers to share worship, encouragement, ministering to each other and tangibly share spiritual life together. That's what the body is supposed to be for. Now again, we talked about it. Some come with that idea of what's in it for me. Am I going to get fed? Who's preaching today? What what who's singing today? What what what's happening today? And they come with that with that notion. Totally totally the wrong spirit to have when we come to the house of God. We have a individual. All of us have a responsibility to each other. There's a responsibility to each other according to scripture. Gathering together on a regular basis has compounded importance in regard to our relationship with our brothers and sisters. The Bible makes it clear that a right relationship with God requires a vertical and a horizontal alignment. That is, we must have a vertical fellowship with God and a horizontal fellowship with the other believers of like faith. 1 John 4:20 says, "If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Now, when we talk about love in scripture, we're not talking about something that involves solely emotion. Emotions, if we loved with emotion, we would love on some days when we felt good. We would not love on other days if the person aggravated us. Right? So, love is not an emotion in the scripture. Love is an active verb. It is something that we we do in our actions to show kindness and attention, acceptance and so forth of our of our brothers and sisters. It isn't it is something we actively do. It is not just an emo, oh, I love you, brother. I love you, brother. Right? It's it is it's not what we're talking about. 1 John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship." Again, if we walk in the light, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. So the scripture reminds us that a secondary purpose of the gathering is for the benefit of our brethren. Coming together to help motivate and encourage one another. This is an important responsibility that is charged to every single believer. We are our brother's keeper. Has anybody here ever been encouraged by another brother and sister here in the church? I have many, many, many, many times. That's one of the beautiful things of coming together and being known in a in a body of Christ or getting involved in a in a small group. If you are not involved in one of our small groups that that takes that love and takes the things that I'm talking about even into a deeper level because it's a smaller group I strongly encourage you to get involved because when I first got married when I first got in the church when I first got in the church uh you know I was very very serious about uh you know the word of God. I read the Bible twice my first year in the church and I lived alone and and I was very very focused and I you know and then you know then Debbie came into my life and we dated and we got engaged and we we got married now before Debbie and I got married. You see I thought living on my own here I was by myself and so I thought man I got victory over everything. I got victory over my anger. I got victory over everything man because I'm I got this walk down right and so so now I get married. See, there's something about when you're in a group of people. You may think when you're alone that you got it all together and you're a perfect Christian and all that, but you come together with a group of people. See, God designed it this way so that as we rub up against each other and personality, there's personality differences and there's cultural differences and so forth. It begins to work on us and develop us, develop our spirit and so forth. And see these these are things that can only be done and learned in community. That's the only way that it happens by coming together and being a part of a group like this. There's things I can I can get the head knowledge down easy if I sit alone and read. But see the when to get the true application you have got to do some work for that to happen for that for for where where where the rubber meets the road, right? Get get with people. get get in a group and you find out quickly where you are and where your spirit where your spirit is begin to work with people. So that's why it is very very important. Now there are numerous one another there are numerous one another scriptures in the New Testament. The local church gathering is the most obvious place where believers can fulfill these commands that I'm going to read right now. To express love one to another, to encourage one another. These are all scriptures. To provoke one another, to love and to good works. To serve one another, to instruct one another, to honor one another. To be kind and compassionate to one another. to speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. To pray for one another, to bear one another's burden. So at church gatherings, when you speak a word of encouragement to someone, pray with someone, advise someone, share a scripture with someone, learn of someone in need who could use your assistance, you are fulfilling the law of Christ, right? That's fulfilling the law of Christ. Just as we must understand that we have a responsibility to gather together to minister to God in worship, we must also understand that our responsibility to gather together to minister is to minister to one another. One another. All right, let's look at another aspect. The reasons we come together. Here's another whole set of reasons. Church authority. This is a big one. You know, if you you can probably narrow down the reasons that people give. And I've got some I've got some good friends that are bright bright people that they would argue with what I'm talking about. Now, they they because they they they stay in their home. They know that that need I'm talking apostolic people. Apostolic. And I I maintain there's only one of a very few reasons why people lock in and and quit going to church that know better that have this truth. I'm not talking about worldly people. I'm not talking about that. Obviously, one big reason is somebody begins to sin and they they walk away from church because they're not living the life and they can't bear the conviction coming among brothers and sisters and hearing preaching and so forth. So, they're in sin and so they're away for a while. But there are people who feel like they're living for God and doing well in their home alone or with their family worshiping alone and don't realize that they're there because at some point they got offended in a pastor or a person in church. Now, they won't admit that, but the reason is an offense is keeping them out of the house of God. an offense. Another big reason, and I I'm thinking of the reasons I've got friends that use. Another big reason. Now, they don't they don't agree with what I'm saying, but that's okay. Another reason is what what I'm getting into right now, church authority. Some people cannot submit themselves to anybody. They're going to be a maverick. They're going to be a renegade. They cannot submit to spiritual authority. And to them, the church represents a structure that they do not trust, they do not believe in, and they will not submit to. So they feel like they can do just as well at home. Again, in using common sense, think about this. What would the church be like in relation to what is being taught in the New Testament if all of us thought like those people that think we're all okay streaming live at home? How did you how did everybody feel during COVID? Wasn't that just great? I mean, there may be some I guess I guess there are some that really took that to heart and enjoyed it because they're they they've never come back. Believe it or not, we have people that left during COVID and and never came back. I guess they just think it's wonderful streaming at home and they don't they don't need the body of Christ. And I hope some of them are listening tonight. I hope they realize how ungrounded and how foolish the decision is to sit out from the house of God. And I know I'm talking plain. I'm talking straight. That's what I want to do tonight because it's ridiculous to not come to the house of God when the doors are open. Yeah. So Ephesians chapter 11, chapter 4 11 and 12 says he gave some, this is talking about church authority, he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ. So these offices have been given by God to be uh to be necessary to carry out the work of the kingdom and to provide teaching, instruction and edi edification for the local church body. Now Hebrews 13:17 says this to all of us. Obey them that have the rule over you. submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable to you. So we are instructed all of us everybody has to submit to somebody. I'm a minister in in the assembly of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor Carpenter is my pastor and he's the bishop of the organization. My license is under him. Right? And so everybody submits everybody submits to to to to somebody. God designed this specific and unique system of accountability for the protection and progress of his people. The implementing of this authority and accountability is not possible not possible unless we are a fixed part of the assembly a fixed part of the body of Christ. You cannot be submitting to a pastor and sitting at home. How how are you submitting to anybody? Who's the pastor? Think think these things through. The common sense. Somebody that believes they're they're right with God. They're baptized. They're full of the Holy Ghost. They're sitting at home. Do they ever try to win a soul? Well, I have friends. They do. What do they do when they do that? How what where do they take them? They take them somewhere to get baptized or they baptize them themselves. So, here we are. What are they then going to do with that person? Now, they've won somebody the Lord. Maybe they baptize them themselves. So in essence, what are they going to do now? Start a structure of the church out of their home, right? Does that make sense? Are they going to take him to a church and get them baptized and then have the person question, "Well, why don't you go to that church? What are they going to say about it?" Well, we just go here to get baptized, but you really don't have to go there. Think about how how what nonsense goes on when people when people think that way. the foolishness the foolishness of it. We cannot be under the authority of spiritual leaders nor can they give an account for our souls unless we are committed to a local church body and participate regularly in the life of the church under the guidance of those appointed leaders. I could not imagine not having being submitted to a pastor that I know has my best spiritual interest at heart. I cannot imagine being out there without a covering. I would never want to be in that situation. A television, radio, or media evangelist or pastor cannot give account for the soul of someone he or she does not know. We cannot claim to be in submission to a watchman of our soul if we attend different churches each week and are not faithful in attendance and support one local church body. I know people that that do that. Sometimes they pass through here. Where were you last week? Oh, well, you know, I went over to there. You know, this this evangelist was there. I I I went over here. You know, that is no way. That is no way to grow our spiritual life. Folks, hear me. That is no way to grow your spiritual life. Let's talk about the operation of the gifts of the spirit. Coming together as a group. We know we talk Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, I won't read it all. He talks about all the the spiritual gifts given to every person, every man to profit with individually, but they're not given to be used individually in our home, in our living room. They're they're given to be used in the context of the assembly to edify the body of Christ. That's what the gifts are given for. That's what they're for. It all takes place in the body of Christ. If we do not regularly meet together for worship, we cannot truly administer our spiritual gifts to the body. Nor can we fully benefit from the ministry of the spiritual gifts of others in the body. So the New Testament teaches the importance of the orderly and rightful operation of the gifts of the spirit in the course of a worship service. That's where they were to be administrated. Paul was teaching that in 1 Corinthians 1213 and 14 near the end of chapter 14 and verse 26 of 1 Corinthians. He says, "How is it then, brethren, when you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation, let all things be done unto edifying." He was instructing how the gift should be used in the context of a service in the in within the gathering together. We call this the gathering. Is that what it's called? The gathering? Yes. Okay. The scripture reveals that the church, the body of Christ is expected to come together on a consistent basis in order for these spiritual gifts and ministries to be fulfilled. All right. A special manifestation of God's presence occurs when we come together because of us gathering together. Matthew 18:20, for example, says, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." And yes, it's saying we're two or three. If all if if if we're meeting in a home and two or three are together and we're praying together, we're worshiping together. Absolutely, God can be in our midst. But the two or three in a home definitely does not fulfill the template of all the things that are to take place in corporate worship. It's not something that we just do that and worship together and say, "I I felt the Lord. Yeah, I felt the Lord. I felt his presence." Right? The scripture also says that God inhabits the praise of his people. Psalms 22:3. And in an atmosphere of corporate worship, the Holy Ghost will often manifest himself in an exceptional way. It does here every service, definitely on Sundays and on on most Wednesday nights because of our corporate worship. We feel a mighty presence of God come into our midst. Right? It's I when I pray in my home and I worship in my home, I feel the presence of God. I can speak in tongues. I can I I can worship God. But there's something about when all of us come together. The power of all of us together makes a huge difference in the depth and the intensity. Very very important for us to be able to experience that together. It's a synergistic power, meaning it is multiplied through all of our coming together. Matthew 18:19 says, "Again, I say to you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven." Now, we know that each of us has the Holy Ghost. We should hopefully each of us has the spirit of God in in our life. And when we gather together and all of our hearts are knit together and we're worshiping God, God definitely comes in a powerful way. This is illustrated in the book of Leviticus 26:8. It says, "And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight, and your enemy shall fall before you by the sword." Think of how many when we come together on a Sunday morning with six or 700 of us. If a hundred put 10,000 to flight, right? Then 700 of us would put 70,000 to flight. Okay? When God's people gather together in unity, great and powerful things occur. In book of Acts, we see it. Acts 4:31. When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. Right? There are always, let me season what I'm saying with understanding. There are always extenduating circumstances. We have elderly people, those with different uh bodily in infirms that do not allow them to come to the house of God or make it very very difficult. Obviously, we're not talking about those situations. And thank God in today's great technological world, they can connect with us connect with us online through the streaming. And obviously we are not in any way talking about people uh in in those situations coming. However, even there are even times when people who are in situations that you would think they have every reason to stay at home like sister Carpenters's sister a few months ago who could barely walk, barely sit coming to church as she's dying of cancer. Linda Thompson coming in a wheelchair just within a week or two of of her of her passing. These are these are people who love and understand the value of the house of God. You do realize when I when I go to I'm Debbie and I are going to Africa Monday to the to Sierra Leon to our church out there and this is the fourth or fifth poorest nation in the world not of Africa in the world. These people have nothing at all. And when I say that I'm not exaggerating. They have nothing. They have the clothes on their back. They have, like the scripture says, some of them have barely a roof over their head, the clothes on their back, and they barely have food to eat. Water's very difficult to come by. They'll spend a day finding water and getting water for the next day. They'll spend a day just doing that, finding water. When they gather though in the house of God, you would never ever know they have a care in this life. They have nothing hindering them, no distraction, no encumbering. They come faithfully through the rain, through the monsoons, sit with rainwater, sometimes splashing from the ground onto their dress or onto their suit, worshiping God, sitting for hours hearing the word of God. Folks, do you do you understand do you understand that America is an extremely blessed nation in the world? Do we understand that we have it so easy, so easy? I do not want to be standing next to one of the folks that I minister to in Africa without knowing that I did my very best in a land of freedom where I could come anytime I want in the comfort of a vehicle, air conditioned vehicle, air conditioned church, beautiful, beautiful facility. Man, I'll tell you what, I don't I don't want to be standing next to them in any kind of in any kind of judgment. You understand what I'm saying? If they can be that faithful with nothing, oh my lord, you know, I I I wouldn't even teach a lesson like this there. They don't even they don't even have this problem. They don't have they're they're so thrilled to come to the house of God. It is like it's shocking to me shocking to me how free they feel in the house of God and how much they love the house of God. It's all they've got. It's all they've got. each other in the house of God. So the first day of the week, and I'm not going to keep drumming these things, but Paul talked about why we meet on the first day of the week. 1 Corinthians 16:1 and2, it's clear now concerning the collection for the saints. As I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye upon the first day of the week. Let every one of you lay him in store, buy him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. Acts 20 and 7, same thing. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them. So we know it was done on the first day of the week. And finally, finally, the admonition that was given. So much the more, so much the more as the day comes. So much the more the way we spend our time reveals what is most important to us. Most important to us. It is contradictory to say that Jesus Christ has first place in our lives when we are not faithful to attend his house for worship on a regular basis. Another one of the big reasons that people miss or only come to church hit or miss is because their priorities are misplaced. if something comes up that they would rather do, they don't go that day to that service. And I know I'm being harsh and if this is online, I'll probably get castigated and that's fine. I'll still defend what I'm saying. But when our priorities are not right, when we do not value the house of God, anything from a football game, a golf game, anything at all can get, we want to go on a picnic that day, we just don't feel like going to church. anything at all can come between us and the house of God when our priorities are not right. And so we've got to got to got to get our priorities right if we're going to make a commitment to be faithful to the house of God. Priorities. Priorities. First day of the week. Priorities. But so much the more as we see the day approaching. Again, I mentioned it. If you see what is going on around, if you see what is going on in Dearbornne, Michigan, where the Muslims will not allow the Christians to pray, but the Muslims are allowed to spread themselves out in the streets and pray everywhere. In England, they're now passing a law that they do not allow Christians to preach to Muslims, but they allow Muslim to preach to the Christians. In Canada, it's the same thing. It's happening more and more. The end times are coming in from all sides. And it's not always perhaps going to be as free and easy as it is and has been in America to just come freely to the house of God without some interference, protest, some something going on that will try to cause us to not to gather together, right? All the more as we see the day approaching. Now, you can look at that scripture in two ways. All the more can mean frequency, but all the more can also mean that it's just that much more important. All the more important that as we see the day approaching that we stay tuned to what God is doing, what what is what the spirit of the Lord is saying to the church through the man of God and so forth. You know, we can be we can be filled with the Holy Ghost. We can be filled with his spirit but our spirit not be right. You understand that? We can be filled with the spirit but our spirit not right. Our spirit not right. We can claim again to be getting all we need to be fed by being home when it's not really happening. Not really happening. Acts 2:46. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house. They were doing it daily. Acts 5:42. And daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Sometimes we get we get this thing backwards. We we we feel like we we we live in the world, you know, we're in the world but not of it. And we're in the world. We have our careers. We have our jobs. I don't anymore. I'm retired at the beginning of the year, thank God. But we have our we have our careers and while we live while we're living our lives, we go to church, right? We we go to church. When in actuality when actuality, the mindset should be our understanding that we are the church. We don't go to church. We are the church. we we gather together, become fitly framed, and we begin to get the benefits that I'm talking about here in in in the scripture. Yes, we need to work for a living to be able to support the kingdom of God, support our families. Yes, we do that. But we are apostolic Christians first, not the other way around. We don't just come to church. The mindset is this is our life. We are apostolics. We gather together whenever we can for the comfort, the strength, the edification, the instruction, the worship and so forth when we come together as the body of Christ. All right. Psalms 27:4, "One thing David said, one thing, one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." to inquire in his temple. Amen. All right. So that is my lesson for you tonight. Now I don't know where we go from here. We can come to the altar. We can talk to the Lord for a few minutes, which would be a nice thing if you'd stand. Do we have any music planned from this point? I'm not sure what has been planned in our absence of our pastoral family. So our music team, there's no music team. There's nothing planned from our music team. I guess not. Why don't we all just come down to the altar, maybe just talk to the Lord for a few minutes before we dismiss. Be thankful. Be thankful for our brothers, our sisters, for what we have in this church, for the leadership we have in this church, for the pastor we have, and so forth. Thank you so much for coming tonight and and and listening. Amen.