Growing up as a pastor’s grandkid, along with having parents who were faithful in raising their four boys in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), meant that for nearly every single week for all of my 25 years of life, I have been at church whenever the doors are open as much as I possibly could. I have never known anything different besides being in church regularly, and something just feels off on the rare Sundays or Wednesday nights I am absent.
With church being such a regular routine and part of my life, it can be easy to get stuck in a rut and just go through the motions of walking in the door, faking a smile at a few people, singing the songs, praying the prayers, listening to the sermon, and jetting out the door for lunch without giving any thought to what just happened during that hour to hour-and-a-half period. There have been times in my life when this has happened to me and if you’re anything like me, I’m sure it has also happened to you.
However, this way of thinking can be changed when we stop for a moment and think about what the Church actually is. I’m not referring to things a church does, such as singing, reading Scripture, preaching, taking part in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, etc. What I mean is what makes a church, a church. Most of us probably understand that the church is not merely the building that we gather in, but it’s the people that gather that constitute the Church. But what kind of people are we talking about? Because the people of God are not just any kind of people.
I was recently struck by this as I was sitting at my dining room table one Sunday morning before church, sipping my coffee. It hit me: Just how unique is the weekly gathering of the people of God? There is nothing else in the world like it. In no other societal context would people from so many different backgrounds, vocations, lifestyles, ages, socio-economic statuses, life stages, and hobbies gather together to do anything, let alone the things a church does.
Perhaps the only things that could even come close to comparing would be people attending a sporting event or a concert but even then, these things are fundamentally different from what happens (or should happen) in a church gathering. There are at least three things that set a gathering of the people of God apart from any other gathered group of people in the world: 1) Why they gather, 2) Who gathers them, and 3) How they are gathered. There will naturally be some overlap between these three points, as they all go hand-in-hand with one another.
Why They Gather
When a church gathers, it is not gathered ultimately for its own sake, or for the sake of anyone else who is physically present. When people gather to watch a baseball game, they are supporting and cheering on a team that is right in front of them. When someone attends a concert, they are giving their support to the artist or band who is performing. But when Christians gather, we do not do so to offer praise or support to those who lead us in singing or those who preach sermons. The gathering is not to draw attention to anyone who is at the gathering, but rather, the One who gathers us. It is ultimately to focus on the Gatherer, not the gathered.
Of course, this is not to downplay the “one another-ness” factor of the church gathering. The author of Hebrews explicitly says that encouraging one another should be one of the marks of gathering together. “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” (Hebrews 10:24-25). But how do we truly and genuinely encourage someone while at the same time, not ultimately focusing on them, but on God? By directing them to God.
When I have had a busy and/or hard week, what I do not need from any church (or any person) is help to disengage from and forget about all my problems. I do not need an attempt at lighthearted, slapstick, and unserious “worship.” I do not need a five-step plan to make all my problems go away because let’s be realistic: that will never happen this side of Heaven. I do not need to be told that I am strong enough to overcome whatever faces me (because I’m not), and I certainly do not need shallow, superficial cliches that are of no real benefit and only sound helpful. I don’t need any of those things. What I need, more than anything else, is to be amazed by God and reminded of the truths of the gospel. I need to not pretend my problems don’t exist, but to look at them as a way of God sanctifying me through them.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unsees. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
That is what I need. I need my gaze and my focus to be directed Heaven-ward, whether that is through singing, preaching, or in conversation with others. This is our greatest need as human beings, to know God and enjoy him. Therefore, it is the most loving thing that we can do as Christians gathered together to direct one another not to those things that are seen and passing away, but to those unseen things that are eternal. And herein lies the purpose of the gathering of a church: to glorify the Gatherer.
Who Gathers Them
On the surface, a bunch of people coming together on a Sunday morning may not seem that significant. But as I stated above, in what other context would so many people of so many different backgrounds come together to sing songs, sit under the preaching of the word, pray, and observe the ordinances? Surely, there is something deeper going on than people coming together to perform mere religious activities.
And there is. For no other reason would such people gather together to do such things, unless it has been divinely ordained. The idea of the gathering of a people and a church is a divine one, not a human one. In the Old Testament, Israel was not chosen to be God’s people based on anything that they had done, but it was based solely on God’s love for, and mercy on them.
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.
Deuteronomy 7:6-8a
Likewise, in the New Testament, Jesus states that it is he who gathers his people.
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd
John 10:14-16
One chapter later, the apostle John makes this same point very clearly when he comments on who it was that Jesus was going to die for: “…Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51-52).
The gathering of the church takes place because of divine initiative; it is not something that people thought up on their own. It includes both the individual calling of people to faith in Christ, as well as the corporate calling to be the gathered people of God. Paul addresses those he’s writing to in Corinth and those who are “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Peter speaks of his audience as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).
It is God who calls and gathers his people, and it is also God, through his Word, that gets to determine what our gatherings should look like. If he is the one who is to get the glory, and if he is the one who brings a people together, than should he not have the authority to say what should and should not happen during our worship services?
How They Are Gathered
Not only are the people of God a brought people, they are also a bought people. Not only are they brought together by a Good Shepherd, but they are also bought by that Good Shepherd who lays down his own life for theirs (John 10:11). One final distinction of what makes the gathering together of the people of God so unique as compared to any other gathering is the bond that ties them together: the blood of Christ.
Concert, movie, and athletic event-goers purchase their tickets and share a similar experience because they have spent money. To go along with that, they will likely also pay an exorbitant amount for parking in some cases, and still more on drinks, snacks, and merchandise.
But consider the price that needed to be paid for Jesus to ransom (purchase) his bride, the Church. He gave his own life and shed his own blood so that she could be washed clean of all of her sin. “…You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). In Acts, Paul speaks to the Ephesians elders about “the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). And again, the author of Hebrews remarks that Christ “secure[ed] an eternal redemption…by means of his own blood” (9:12).
As the Puritan, Stephen Charnock, said,
Let us look upon a crucified Christ, the remedy of all our miseries. His cross hath procured a crown, his passion hath expiated our transgression. His death hath disarmed the law, his blood hath washed a believer’s soul. This death is the destruction of our enemies, the spring of our happiness, and the eternal testimony of divine love.
Stephen Charnock, Christ Our Passover
The blood of Christ is also what makes it possible for people from so many different walks of life to come together and enjoy peace and true fellowship with one another. Paul speaks of this very thing when he says that the Gentiles, “who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). As a result of being brought near to God, they have now also been brought near to other believers, with whom they would have had nothing in common with prior to being born again. Christ has broken down this hostility and united people of all different backgrounds and made them “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (see Ephesians 2:11-22).
The blood of Jesus that was shed for his people is infinitely more valuable, and is able to do infinitely more than money or any else that has binding power ever could. It breaks down barriers, makes peace, and humbles its recipients in situations that would be otherwise impossible and hopeless. The blood of Jesus Christ is the scarlet and unbreakable thread that ties his church together both to himself, and to one another for all eternity.
Don’t Take This Lightly
Reflecting on these truths, the way we approach corporate worship and our attitude toward it should be one of awestruck-ness. When we understand where we came from and what the grounds of our gathering is (the blood of Christ), who it is that brought us together and orchestrates everything pertaining to our salvation and sanctifiction (God!), and for what purpose we are gathered (to glorify him), then that should lead us to prayerfully prepare our hearts and minds for Sunday mornings, and any other time services are held at our churches. Our prayer should be like that of Paul for the church at Ephesus:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.
Ephesians 1:17-19
Above All Things 