I hear it all the time. People who profess Christ will tell me that they do not need to go to church. That the church is full of hypocrites and that they would rather worship from home and not go to church. You see, their lives may be too busy on a Sunday morning to attend church and forsake the fellowshipping of believers. There is a problem with this statement though and it is one that demonstrates a sickness within evangelicalism today.
Churches today are doing everything they can to get people in the door. I just recently read about a church in California that is giving away cars, x-boxes and even jewelry to people who would enter their doors on Easter Sunday. Or maybe the church down your street holds entertaining concerts on Sunday morning in lieu of worship in order to attract the world. The problem with all of this is that I believe we are overlooking the real problem. You see, a true believer will not need to be convinced or enticed to come to church. They will want to since they are new creations – indwelt with the Holy Spirit who gives us new longings and affections. One of those affections will be a love for the brethren and a God-given desire to be around them – especially in corporate worship. We’re also missing the important truth that when a soul truly is regenerated they will also have a desire to obey their Lord, and of course that would include having a desire to go out into the world as lights and share the gospel with the world.
Let us not forget that the world’s biggest problem is not cancer, poverty, politics, health care or a recession. The world’s biggest problem is God. God is rightfully angry at every single human being because we have all broken His law and sinned grievously and willfully against the Creator. Would not one who has been showered with the riches of Christ’s grace which He lavished on us not have a burning desire to share that glorious good news with the world? Why is it that most leaders in the church today find it necessary to lure the world in when they should instead be spending their time preaching the Scriptures to the regenerate flock within the church calling them to holiness and equipping the saints to go therefore and make disciples. Christians will then be out in the world heralding the gospel making disciples and these converts will then have a desire to look for a church – for if they are truly regenerated they will now have a new disposition craving the corporate worship of Jesus Christ and a desire to be around their eternal brothers and sisters adopted into the kingdom through Christ Jesus. And if an unbeliever does come into our churches should they not see and experience something so unlike the world that it should cause them to pause and wonder who this Jesus is that these people are so in love with and how much they are unlike the world? Sadly, this is rarely the case in the typical church today.
I am saddened by what I hear week after week when I am out on the streets witnessing to folks alongside my brothers and sisters in our evangelism team. Professing believers tell me time and time that they believe they are saved because of a prayer they repeated or because they have been baptized and all-the-while they have absolutely no love for the Church – no love or desire to be in the company of believers. (Much less a love for Christ.) Scripture is strikingly clear – if there is no love for the brethren the love of God is not in you. (1 John 3:14) This is simply saying that if you have no love for other believers, you cannot be a believer yourself.
Allow this quote from Jonathan Edwards on True Christianity to speak to this better than I ever could:
“A common argument of many nominal Christians is that they love Jesus but don’t care for the church. The teaching of 1 John exposes the flaws of this argument, revealing it to be an unbiblical dichotomy. All who are saved by God possess the Spirit, which links them to all other people who possess the Spirit. The local church, of course, is not perfect, and some have had difficult experiences with churches they have attended. But when God saves a person, He gives them a love for His people. His people are the church.”
We need to return to the truths of God’s Word and return to the preaching and teaching of the full counsel of Scripture. Have we completely forgotten that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and not the latest gimmick, concert or pragmatic approach to increasing church membership. I will borrow a great truth from Dr. Mark Dever and state that the biggest problem with the church today is lack of regenerate membership. May the Lord forgive our foolish ways and may we repent and turn back to heralding the full counsel of God’s mighty Word as we lift high the cross of Christ and determine to know nothing but Christ Jesus and Him crucified! (2 Corinthians 2:2)
Soli Deo Gloria!
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The next time someone tells you that they don’t go to church because its ‘full of hypocrites’ tell them, “That’s preposterous! It can’t be completely full of hypocrites, because you aren’t there.”
Jay, you know I’m just kidding of course…
Great job. Keep it up.
From the narrow path,
Len Qualls
One Over 99 Ministry
Hey Len,
That’s true. I once had a cousin of mine who told me that he wouldn’t go to church because it is full of hypocrites. I told him there is always room for one more. :-)
Hope you had a blessed Holy Week! Thanks for stopping by!
Soli Deo Gloria!
You make many good points in this article. It’s good you point out ‘we (believers) are the church’. Yet it seems you could take this article further. Don’t really agree the ‘emphasis’ is corporate worship, implying music ministry. Sadly, focus on the ‘worship music’ led to the downgrade of other functions/gifts of attending believers. And to look at the ‘church’ model from Acts, we find that believers assemble from house to house daily. I agree, a model for today’s church can be found on the sabbath, when believers assembled (Soloman’s portico) to be equipped by an equipper (5 fold). Yet if someone assembles daily, or as often as possible (not just Sunday/Wednesday), with other believers… then does the proposition you put forth apply. Many are accused of forsaking the assembly when in fact, they may assemble more closely following the model in Acts. And it’s good to mention the other functions present in the ‘church’. Do not ALL have a teaching, a song, a gift, to be used for the building up of bretheren? And does this happen in your ‘church’? I will say, a building on Sunday is fine if believers are being equipped, the shepherd IS taking care to protect the flock, and church discipline is practiced. We are the church, the bride of Christ. And I agree, by the Spirit we are built into the church and are given a desire to assemble with other believers. But to not attend a building where the afformentioned qualities as put forth in scripture are not practiced, does not constitute forsaking the assembly! We should all agree there are shortcomings in every church and every believer, and I by no means am looking for perfection in a church building. Yet there should be a process of sanctification going on that drives the church to honor her Lord, not just appease the conscience of men ‘playing church’ when in fact much of the flock is goats and wolves.
Please don’t take what I have said as an attack, you have made very good points. I just see an attack on professing believers who apparently ‘forsake the assembly’. We do well to recognize they might be true believers who see the truth and want no part of ‘western man centered Jesus club’ on Sunday; or they may be lost ‘professing’ people that have no business mingling with the flock, the bride of Christ! In that case, we preach the gospel and pray God builds them into His church! Afterall, human hands do not build His temple! And although Dever seems to make a good point, there is something that needs to be clear. The ‘church’ as he puts it is a mixed multitude, and should not be so, hence Paul’s admonition to practice church discipline. The regenerate ARE the church! And she may be assembling more often, (and in true fellowship), than the average Sunday/Wednesday crowd the world sees!
I agree very much with your statement above. There is no perfect church this side of heaven. However, I would say that there are plenty of good, Bible believing churches that have not adopted the “Jesus Club” and those true believers should make every effort to attend a good church. I hope that my article has not come across to polemic but this is just something that I get a little (or maybe a lot) fired up about.
I appreciate you taking the time to leave your comment!
Soli Deo Gloria!
It’s important to attend, but finding a sound chruch is rough. We spent years homechruching until we finally found one a hour away from our home. We’ve been attending for a year and a half. Because we live so far away, and we farm for a living, attending every sunday isn’t always possible. Now were being talked to by the chruch pastor that we are forsaking our obligation to assemble with the body. I told him to start having chruch services at our house and see how long it takes for those who attend every sunday to see how long it takes for some to miss a sunday, which didn’t help maters any because I compounded the problem now by being told I have a problem with chruch leadership by questioning this. Everyone else has jobs that give them the weekend off, so it makes it easy to attend. This time of year I might be helping a cow have a calf, planting, or what ever. It has really put a rift in what up to this point seemed to be a good chruch family. Now were asking ourselves what to do. We want to keep going, but not when were looked at as substandard. Attending chruch is so important, but what to do when you don’t seemed to fit. Back to home chruch. As you said, no chruch is perfect. I hope my comments have maintained your topic, sorry if its off topic.