Why Shouldn't I Stay Home and Watch Church Online?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Hebrews 10:25, Acts 2

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--why-shouldnt-i-stay-home-and-watch-church-online
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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let's start with hebrews 10 25 it says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is and then it goes on to say you should actually be meeting even more as you see the day of the lord approaching so meeting together is god's idea it's god's command the early church which was a model for us in acts 2 it said they met of course they met in a large company in the temple which would be the temple grounds and from house to house so there are large meetings and small meetings even if you can't have a large meeting you can still have a small meeting you don't think god had a virtual world in mind no i don't think so now obviously there was no technology such as we have now and i will say of course technology can be a great benefit and we've used technology in many ways even before the internet uh we would record service and people were the shut-ins we would give them a tape or a cd and and i would say if you're physically prevented from coming to church due to illness or you know mandatory work schedule travel we all understand there may be occasional times that you will miss that's true of everyone and we also recognize that if you really can't come because of circumstances beyond your control we do believe in the grace of god and so i do believe that in that case uh the internet can be a great help because people can actually get the message and and participate virtually and i believe the grace of god will make up the difference but that's a general principle if if you're unable to do everything you want then you trust the grace of god to make up the difference but when you can do something and neglect it then you don't really have an assurance of the grace of god and you could backslide you could lose some of your fervor and strength and it could happen without you realizing it because when you know to do something and don't do it it's sin if you neglect now i'm i'm not saying that someone who occasionally misses because of legitimate reasons but yet tries to tune in uh or you know to watch online or someone who's traveling or someone who's been in multiple services in a row um and then chooses one virtually i'm not saying they've sinned or going to hell are going to backslide i'm just saying the principle is when you can do something you should when you can't do it then you can trust the grace of god but when you knowingly neglect or knowingly refuse to do what is good then you do bear greater responsibility and the bible does teach to assemble ourselves together on a practical level what difference does it make well there's an intangible factor of worship of intercessory prayer of consecration of fellowship the atmosphere of building faith and so there are many benefits and we we humans are social creatures we're not meant to be in isolation it's unhealthy uh psychologically socially even physically and spiritually to be isolated and disconnected now i i do know some people have great risk because of risk factors and i understand their caution but i would say you can't live life without any risk i mean just getting in the car and traveling is a risk so i do believe we shouldn't take we should try to mitigate risk and take all reasonable measures so for example uh when when i travel i wear a seat belt so i'm minimizing the risk or doing what i can to avoid the risk so i think when cove had first hit we tried to follow reasonable regulations of masks of they said two weeks to flatten the curve so go online for two weeks or have parking lot church or maybe have small house groups so i never advocated that we wouldn't have church but you can have church in different forms and so if it had to be in small groups or in house or whatever and and yes online could could provide that but that's only temporary local when it's absolutely necessary but as soon as you're able to do something different you should now again someone who's at very high risk or in a home of high-risk people i understand they will be more cautious but at some point you have to take steps to mitigate the risk but you have to be willing to assume at least some risk and you have to be willing to trust god now trusting god doesn't mean not using your brain and not taking precautions that you can't as i've already said i trust god when i drive or fly but but that's not incompatible with wearing a seat belt because that's something i can do uh and so i'm not saying just ignore the issues but i think probably we need to reevaluate the calculus and uh serving god and coming to church and worshiping together is a very high priority and we should be willing to assume some level of risk in order to fulfill something that's much more important and i think we are at a level in our society for the vast majority of the people with proper measures you can still take measures if you wish such as social distancing masking vaccination whatever you feel would help you and you can still come to church and still participate still worship and for those that don't i would say well you know do you go grocery shopping do you go to work do you go out to eat and maybe you can do some of those things virtually but are you going to live your whole life virtually are you going to live your whole life in the confines of your home first of all probably not so if you're not going to do it for other things you shouldn't do it for god and if you are living your whole life strictly in isolation that's probably more unhealthy for you than whatever level of risk that we currently have and and so looking at it all together it's time to go to the house of god why should we do it number one it's a command from god number two it has many intangible benefits uh i'm thankful for the technology that assists us in expanding our outreach assisting us with shut-ins or exceptional circumstances so i'm not against the use of the technology and i'm not against all of us on occasion going online as the best choice under the circumstances but overall i would say we all have to be in church on a weekly basis and worshiping god together