Sundays to Start the Week
Seeing Eternity and Living in the Light of It Part 4 of 4
We’ve finally come to the end of this series. There is so much more to this topic that I may pick it up again, but until then here is Part 4 about the family habit and importance of church and Sunday attendance. I address this mainly to parents with young children or parents who find it hard to attend church regularly, but my hope is that if you are faithful and an active participant in your local church that you will be encouraged toward how the repetitiveness of each Sunday worship is forming you and your family for an eternity with our Heavenly Father.
“In other words, we’re not simply creatures of our environment. We are creatures shaped by what grabs our attention--and what we give our attention to becomes our objective and subjective reality.” Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age by Tony Reinke
After a bad romantic relationship gone worse in my twenties, I could think of a million and 1 reasons why I shouldn’t go to church or why I couldn’t go to church on Sundays. It was mainly because of guilt and shame that weighed me down. One bad decision kept leading to more bad decisions and to make a long story short, this period of my life ended with my pastor saying, “You’re worse than you think you are and God loves you more than you think He does.” But the habit of making excuses to not attend service stayed with me longer than it should have.
As a first time mom and then a mom of 2 with very little sleep, it was easier to just throw my hands up in surrender to staying home. I thought, “What’s the purpose of going to church when I won’t even be able to attend worship or pay attention during worship?” In my decision to stay at home, I was saying again and again that I didn’t need God. Neither did my family. I was putting my tired body first. Or in my earlier days, I was taking my guilt and shame and trying to “extinguish” a flood of troubles apart from God and His people.
C.S. Lewis from Screwtape Letters on Fads and Fashions says,
“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers…the game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”
I thought the danger was in my tired body, but my soul was in need of more than just physical rest. I thought my guilt and shame far outweighed the grace of God and so as ridiculous as it is to try to solve a flood problem with a fire extinguisher, there I was doing just that. It wasn’t until I became Children’s Education Ministry director and was required to attend that I learned the importance of church and Sundays in worship. With my daughter who was a baby strapped to my back, I served and we packed up our 3 children every Sunday faithfully and the requirement quickly became a need and imperative for the whole family.
And so I ask you, what is it that keeps you Sundays at a time from corporate worship? What flood are you trying to extinguish on Sundays when the real trouble is your weekdays apart from God? What is the lie that you believe that keeps you from bringing your family to church each Sunday? The fact of the matter is, I did not understand church. I saw it as a very individualistic thing, me going to meet God through the sermon. And if I couldn’t hear the sermon because I would have to sit in the nursery with my babies, then what was the use? But it’s important to see the whole picture, not just part of it. Ray Ortland responds to C.S. Lewis’ quote above by saying,
"Wisdom calls us not to “balance,” which is compromise, but to fullness, which is well-proportioned theology and ministry according to Scripture. Whatever our present enthusiasm is – it’s probably a good thing, but just one aspect of the larger fullness of God’s Word. All we need to do, to get off-track and even prepare the next generation either to take our incompleteness into actual heresy or to react against us with a pendulum swing toward some opposite eccentricity — all we need to do is keep repeating today’s focus of enthusiasm, today’s big theme, today’s fashionable idea.
Wise leaders are constantly going back to the Bible and rediscovering the biblical message in its full magnitude, centered in the mighty Christ who is bigger than all our present categories.”
When we have a lack of understanding of church and corporate worship—when it is an incomplete picture—it is so easy to be distracted by 1st world problems. And we pass this incomplete knowledge to the next generation. When we attend church frivolously, we repeat to our children again and again that something else is more important. They only receive a partial message of the Gospel, but they apply it to their daily lives, over and over again. Oftentimes, the youngest among our CEM can spot the hypocrisy of their parents with clarity. They are moved by the Spirit by a lesson shared with them and find that there is a tension between what is being preached and the way things are at home or maybe they see their parents’ faith as just lip service and there is a real lack of living out the Gospel in the family life. How harmful these things are to a child with a growing faith. And I agree with Ortland, this will either turn into heresy or a faith in something completely opposite of the Gospel. It must start with a proper knowledge of church. The following is some of what I have learned about corporate worship and church since my 20s.
Let’s Start with the Future: Seeing Eternity
“…remarkably, amazingly, astoundingly, your church, the one we want you to rediscover, is the place where the Bible says heaven has begun to descend to earth…” Jonathan Leeman from Rediscovering Church: Why the Body of Christ is Essential
Are you tired, dear parent? Are you stuck in a muck of mundane daily tasks of work and home? Have you set your heart on building up for yourselves and your family treasures on earth? Has a series of illnesses struck your home? Have you become complacent with faith or jaded with people, namely the church? Has the cruelties of living in a fallen world dimmed your hope, or maybe even snuffed it out? Scripture says to look heavenward.
It tells us and reminds us that we are just passing through as sojourners and exiles. 1 Peter 2:11
It encourages us in the fact that our present struggles are nothing compared to all that will be revealed. Romans 8:18
It tells us to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth. Matthew 6:19-21
We pray most often, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” in the Lord’s Prayer, but we fail to realize that this prayer will be done through the church. In Question 48 of the New City Catechism, we see the answer to what the church is,
“God chooses and preserves for himself a community elected for eternal life and united by faith, who love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. God sends out this community to proclaim the gospel and prefigure Christ’s kingdom by the quality of their life together and their love for one another.”
The word prefigure stands out here. It means “to show or represent beforehand by a figure or type: foreshadow.” The church is a special place where we gather to prefigure what’s to come. Why do we deny ourselves of such a community? We should not trade it for anything. And God is uniquely present on Sundays with His people. Megan Hill, Christian author says,
“But he particularly attaches his promised presence to public worship. Referring to the church, Jesus says, ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them’ (Matthew 18:20). If we want to experience more of Christ’s presence, we must go to church.”
And so we should not be so quick to trade in our Sundays for __________. When we attend Sunday service, we are reminded of what’s to come and we all receive a common grace of God’s presence. We are built up in Christ. So our week should begin with worship on Sundays and our weekdays should match our Sundays as we live out the Gospel in our daily lives. Let’s not make it a habit to frivolously trade this special day of rest in the Lord for whatever it is that keeps you from Sunday service. Committing to Sundays means so much more than we know for our children, for ourselves, and for the body. Even with little ones. I can remember countless times, the Lord spoke through others, and even my toddler child. More than that, in the commitment to go, your heart is being formed through this habit. Your child’s heart is being formed as well. Your family is being formed and the church is being a light on a hill for others to see and come and be saved. I guarantee that this is far better than any kingdoms you will join or build here on earth.
Let’s End with the First Church
“Heaven will not descend to earth through any nation today. And it hasn’t descended to earth among any nation since God tied his presence to the temple of ancient Israel.” Jonathan Leeman
Our children’s ministry has been going through the book of Acts and this past Sunday studied a difficult passage about Ananias and Sapphira. What makes this passage difficult is that Ananias and Sapphira were struck down for being deceitful about their generosity to the church. All, at that time, gave willingly and shared sacrificially from the heart. Scripture says, “There was not a needy person among them…” (Acts 4:34a) There was a man named Barnabas who sold his field and brought the money to the apostles. Ananias and Sapphira did the same, but kept part of the money and lied and said that they were giving it all to the apostles. They wanted to be seen as generous and were putting on airs, but not for long as they were struck down. What makes this a hard passage is that the punishment seems harsh, when the Gospel of Christ is forgiveness and the punishment has been paid by Christ. So why did God strike them down?
Dan Claire in his sermon, “A Costly Mistake,” shares about how Peter and John had healed a lame beggar and shares the impact it had on the people of Jerusalem.
“People began to realize that what they saw among Jesus’ followers was the very power and authority that they had always hope to find in the Jerusalem temple, but never found there…The temple was supposed to be a portal between heaven and earth where anyone and everyone could be taught by God and healed by God and forgiven by God and redeemed by God, but instead it was corrupt…So corrupt that Jesus had condemned it and closed it and said he would raise up a new temple when he rose from the dead. So in a few short weeks the early church had grown from a handful of Jesus’ disciples to 5,000 households…quite possibly the majority of living people in Jerusalem at the time. All the things you were supposed to find in the temple…were actually now being found among Jesus’ followers, amongst the early Christians…the temple was now at work amongst the people of God. The old temple was corrupt, but the new church was holy and pure…showing the power and authority that used to be at the temple has now come to the early church. The temple used to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but God had moved house. He had moved into the early church. The early church was now his mobile home. And as people gave their lives to Jesus they became holy containers filled with God’s Holy Spirit.”
Pastor Claire continues to share how God was protecting the early church from the same deceitfulness and corruption that existed in the temple. And so the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not so much greed, but deceitfulness. Satan, who is the father of deceit was behind all of this as mentioned in vs. 3. God in His holiness stopped the corruption of the early church because this is from where the Gospel would go out to the nations. Vs. 11 says, “And a great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.” And so what can we learn from this passage? God in His infinite wisdom through Christ tore the curtain in two and gave us the privilege of having Him dwell within us, opening salvation to all who would come and believe in Christ. We should cherish the church, commit to it, and protect it.
How beautiful is the scene of the early church and their sacrificial love for one another. How attractive and different they must have been to outsiders. Let us not live in deceit and grasp onto the world and God. We’re deceiving ourselves when we do. Let us not live in deceit and live as Sunday Christians, but love the church and commit to her whom Christ gave His life for. For it is through the church, where our children will grow and become disciples. Let’s set the stage for them to share their testimonies by bringing them into true community. Let’s instill in them this habit that is of utmost importance as it is a reflection of what is to come and therefore is forming them unto eternity.
I’ll end with this hymn that our littlest and younger elementary have been singing together, “The Church’s One Foundation.” They only sing the first verse, but sharing all the verses as they are blessed with such truth.
1 The Church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
she is his new creation
by water and the Word.
From heav'n he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.
2 Elect from ev'ry nation,
yet one o'er all the earth;
her charter of salvation:
one Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with ev'ry grace endued.
3 The Church shall never perish.
Her dear Lord to defend,
to guide, sustain, and cherish,
is with her to the end.
Tho' there be those that hate her
and strive to see her fail,
against both foe and traitor
she ever shall prevail.
4 Tho' with a scornful wonder
the world sees her oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,
yet saints their watch are keeping;
their cry goes up, "How long?"
and soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
Now What?
Identify what flood you are trying to extinguish. What is the one thing that keeps your family from committing to church?
Learn more about God’s plan and purpose for the church. Grow in knowledge of a proper theological understanding of the church.
Let your weekdays match your Sundays and your Sundays match your weekdays.
Until next time, I’ll save a seat for you at the table.