Is Going to Church Really Necessary?
Think about that for a minute. That’s a thought that most of us at one time or another may have had in our lifetime if we believe that God exist. I certainly have had those thoughts at times in the past. I can worship God anywhere. God can hear me no matter where I am, and He sees what I do. God sees that I am trying to do right by Him and treat people right and help people out when I can. I felt like I can get together with a few people at my house, show them lovingkindness and be worshipping God because God is love, or even just be sitting in my backyard by myself and be worshipping God. It’s not really necessary to be in a church building with a group of people to worship God. That’s their opinion. God is everywhere so I can worship Him wherever I am. This is how I once thought about being in a church and to be perfectly honest, I felt like, I don’t really want to be going up in there anyway until I get myself right. I don’t want to be like some of those people up in there anyway. This is the way I felt about church right up to the time I heard God called unto me from heaven through His word,. and I heard His heavenly call to believe on His Son Jesus Christ, and to listen to Him. One thing I have learned over the years as I have grown in my faith, is that very few people have ever heard the audible voice of God coming from heaven itself. I am not making any claim at all to be one of them, but I can talk about three of those people that the Bible itself tells us who did hear God speak from heaven in an audible voice. They were Peter, James and John, Jesus’ disciples. They were in the mountain with Jesus when a cloud overshadowed then and a voice came out of the cloud, and this is what they heard God the Father speak concerning His Son Jesus Christ,
“While Peter was talking to Jesus,…. a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son… Hear Him!” …(Luke 9:34-35)
That experience of hearing God’s voice from heaven out of those clouds had a lasting impact on those disciples. They never forgot about it. Peter wrote about his experiences after Jesus was resurrected from the dead and had ascended back into heaven where He is now seated on His throne as God. Peter, speaking about that experience with boldness in one of his letters in the Bible, in Second Peter, chapter one, and verses 16-17 he says this,
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” ..And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain…(2 Peter 1:16-18)
Beloveth, this was a Heavenly call from God the Father to those disciples who had come to believe in His Son Jesus Christ as their Lord, to listen to what Jesus Christ His Son has to say to them, on whatever subject Jesus Christ speaks to them on. This call to them from heaven is also a call to us today who have also believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. To refuse to hear the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the living God,.. is to refuse to listen to God Himself. God said, … “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”… God said that here in.…(Luke 9:34-35)
God, the Scriptures said has spoken to us in His Son Jesus Christ. Because it’s God that has spoken in His Son, my opinion and your opinion and everybody’s else opinion has to take a back seat to God’s on whatever subject God speaks on, less we be found sitting in judgement of the wisdom of the very God who created us. Look at it again in the letter to the Hebrews, chapter one and verse one…
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds…..( Hebrews 1:1-2)
Jesus Christ Himself told His disciples that the words He spoke were not His, but God the Father was speaking through Him in ..(John 12:49-50)
“For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.” (John 12:49-50)
Beloveth, God has spoken to us through His Son Jesus Christ, in regard to the question about whether it is necessary to go to church or not. Jesus talking directly to Peter, one of His disciples says this to him,..
“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it……(Matthew 16:18)
Stop for a minute and think about this for a minute. We have just saw that God has spoken to us, in His Son Jesus Christ and God has told us to listen to His Son, and what His Son Jesus Christ has just told us is this,.. He is building His church. So, this building of His church is God’s work not man’s. Jesus makes it very clear who’s church it is. He says,.. “I will build My church”.
The word Jesus uses here for, “church” means, `an assembly of called out ones’. So, when we talk about the church, we a talking about an assembly of people that have been called out by Jesus Christ. Two questions came to mind for me at this point. What are these people being called out from? And, how is Jesus Christ, calling them? Jesus answers the first question in John, chapter 15, and verse19 where He says this to His disciples…
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but, … I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you….(John 15:19).
The church then, is made up of people that God, through His Son Jesus Christ,.. has called out from this world,.. to be become part of an assembly of people who have made a personal decision to listen to the Lord Jesus Christ. People who have believe who He is, the Lord, their Creator, and have made a personal choice just as Jesus’ disciples did, to follow Him. That’s what Jesus Christ is building and so before I answer the second question I had to stop and ask myself a question about what I just learned. Jesus said,” I will build My church”, an assembly of called out people. God through Jesus Christ is calling people to an assembly, and so when I decide that I can believe in Jesus Christ and don’t need to go to a church, (His assembly), and tell others that same thing, then I am working against the very thing that the Lord Jesus Christ said He was building, His church, this assembly of people called out from this world unto Him. I would be working against the very God who created me. I would be working against the very God who gives me my next breath, and pause for a minute and think about this,..I am working against the very God that I am going to stand before and be judged by when I pass from this life. Beloveth, when I thought that way and if I influenced others to think that way, I was speaking and working against God Himself, even though I didn’t realize it. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples in Matthew, chapter 12, and verse 30…
“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. …(Matthew 12:30).
This world or the world system that the Lord Jesus Christ said he is calling people out of is a way of living life that is independent of God. It is a way of living life without any regard for what God has said on matters unless what God has said will make me happy and fulfilled and benefits what I want out of life. It is a way of living that does not want God having authority over my life while I am living because of what that might mean but wants to be received into heaven at the end of life. It is a way of thinking that believes it’s me and the good that I do in life that God will look at to determine if I get into heaven, rather than trust the sacrifice Jesus Christ has told us He made for every one of us on that cross to pay the penalty for our sins against God. Finally, this world system that Jesus Christ is calling people out of is a way of living life based on what each individual feels personally is right or wrong rather than looking at what God Himself has clearly said about matters in the Scriptures. This is what Jesus Christ is calling people out of, and into an assembly,… called the church, -His church.
Having understood that God is building His church, and that this assembly of called out people is His work, and that He has called them out of this world to Himself, my second question I had then is, how is He calling them. When Jesus Christ was on this earth, He called His disciples personally. We can see that in several passages,..
And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And immediately,.. He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after Him…..( Mark 1:16-20)
Jesus Christ has ascended back into heaven, but He is still building His church by calling those He wants to be a part of His church, through people who have already believed in Him, and are obeying His call to them to take the message of the gospel that God has given them, to those God is calling out to, from heaven. It is a heavenly call that God, by His Spirit, begins in the heart. This is what the apostle Paul told the church in his letter to the church in Thessalonica.
“But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which,… He called you by our gospel,. for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ….(2 Thessalonians 2:13-14)
God called those who made up the church of the Thessalonians through the message they heard preached. Beloveth, God loves us all so much more than we could ever comprehend with these human minds we have and that is why I call you beloved as I write, because that’s what you are to God, and I want properly relay God’s heart toward you.
What I had realized about myself as I looked back on the time, I was questioning whether I need to go to church or not is this, I felt that way because of my unwillingness to listen to Jesus Christ. I didn’t want Jesus to reign over my life at that time because of what that might mean to me at the time, and it is only when God began to do a work in my heart that that feeling started to change. The sense of the need to go to a church in our hearts, has been put there by God Himself. Make no mistake about it. It is a Heavenly call, and God at times uses people in divinely appointed times, and places, and even the circumstances of our lives to make that Heavenly call to you and me, although we might not realize it is God calling out to us. This is what the apostle Paul is telling those in the church in Corinth,..
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God…….(2 Corinthians 5:20).
It may be a coworker, it may be a friend, it may be a neighbor, it make be a radio program, it may be a preacher at a funeral or in a church service, it may be a relative or it may be a stranger who God causes to cross your path in your life, or it may be difficult times in our lives that God brings about in order to get us to pause for a minute from the business of the everyday cares of life to stop and think about our eternal destiny. Whatever it is, or whoever it is God decides to use to call us, each one of us have to decide how we are going to answer that heavenly call from Him. Jesus says,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me…( Revelation 3:20)
I want to in closing, speak to the question I once had about whether I can just get a group of people together at my house and call that a church because I am showing them love because God is love, by saying this,..a group of people together at home is not necessarily a church in the sense of what Jesus Christ calls His church that He is building. Why do I say that? Well, because this church that the Lord Jesus Christ said He is building has an order to it that God Himself has setup as it pleased Him.
“But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased… (1 Corinthians 12:18)
Yes, indeed there have been many churches that have started in homes. Most of the churches that you read about in the Bible were started in homes, but here’s the difference I learned. They were in their foundational stage. Their goal which each one pursued, was to set their church up according to the pattern God has set up in the word of God. It is God that has determined who will be a pastor or teacher, or any other leader in His church. You can’t just gather a group together pick a leader and call that a church. God chooses each member’s place in His church as it pleased Him. God gave these gifted people to the church to equip each church member for the work of the ministry He has prepare them for so that each individual member working together as a whole, will accomplish God’s purposes and be built up and edified, until that church looks like Jesus Christ in the character of its members individually and as a church body.
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (Ephesians 4:11-13)
Beloved this is what God is building in calling unto us from Heaven, to be a part of. Now can I worship God at home? Yes I can, and I should. Personal time alone with the Lord is something we all need once we have made that personal decision to receive Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. If I have really believed He is the one who will determine what my eternal destiny will look like based on what I have decided His place is going to be in my life, then I must allow Him His rightful place as God over my life by submitting to His rule. He wants to hear you and I acknowledge Him as Lord. He is a merciful God who is ready to forgive us when we ready to ask Him. There is no other way to know for sure that Heaven will be your home when you die. If you have not yet done that but in your heart, you sense a need to have peace in your heart about where you will be if you were to die today, then I urge you to go to the “Prayers” page under the “Encouragement” menu to see how to invite Jesus Christ into your life.
Finally, God says to us, do not follow the example of those who choose not to church, or those who don’t make going to church to serve the purposes of God, a priority in their lives. In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 10, and verse 25, the Scriptures, which are God’s words to us in print, God says this,..
“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching…..( Hebrews 10:24-25)
Is it necessary to go to church? Yes it is,… God actually said that.