The Art of Going to Church-Part A

They were going through the ritual, going through the motions, going through the ceremony, but living a double standard, worshiping idols, not treating their fellow neighbors with respect, a whole litany of things. That, says Solomon, is foolish. It's foolish to think you can just bring a lamb to God and that's it. Here God, here's my sacrifice. It's foolish to think, well I came to church and said a few prayers.

It's foolish to think I just got to write a check. It's foolish to try to cover up with a ceremony or a ritual, a reality that speaks of something different. You know, Bill Gates once said, just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. Well, sure Bill, we could all probably get more done by not going to church, but would we be doing anything better? People have plenty of reasons not to go to church, but what about reasons for us to keep going?

Can you come up with any of those? Why do you go to church? We'll take some time to examine that on today's broadcast of Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. But first, here's what we have for you this month at connectwithskip.com. The beating heart of Bible prophecy is the land of Israel and the Middle East. Joel Rosenberg has his finger on the pulse of the world shaking changes happening right now, and he unveils them in his new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. This is the first book of its kind that takes you inside the Oval Office, inside the palaces of the kings and crown princes, the presidents and the prime ministers in Israel and in the Arab world as we ask them, what do you think about religious freedom, about making peace with Israel, about the threat from Iran, about U.S.-Arab relations, U.S.-Israel relations? Enemies and Allies from multiple New York Times best-selling author Joel Rosenberg takes you on an unforgettable journey inside the turbulent Middle East. You'll go behind closed doors to hear from the very kings and crown princes, presidents and prime ministers who are leading the charge. Enemies and Allies includes exclusive, never-before-published quotes, insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the world's most controversial leaders. Your hardcover copy of Enemies and Allies is our thanks for your generous gift of $35 or more today.

To give, call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com. Today we're in the book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 5. So open your Bibles as Skip Heitzig begins with the reason he started attending church. At the end of every crusade, Dr. Billy Graham looks into the camera and says, after he has prayed with people to receive Christ, he always says, and be sure that you go to church next Sunday. And I remember hearing that when I received Christ after listening to one of his messages.

And that's what put me in search of a local fellowship. It's because of that admonition, I became a churchgoer. Now people can go to church for different reasons.

You can have good reasons or not so good reasons. A good reason would be because you love God and you want to worship Him corporately and you want to honor Him with all of your substance. That's a good reason, but not everybody attends church for that reason. Some people attend church out of fear and not the fear of the Lord.

I mean, they're afraid. It's a superstition that people grow up with. Sort of like, well, I mean, why would God ever let me into heaven if I can't at least go to church while I'm on earth?

And that's a superstition that drives people to attend. Other people do it out of duty. They have an obligation they feel.

They have an obligation they feel, I'm an American, I'm a citizen, I'm a parent. It's my obligation to go to church. Others can go to church out of romance. Yeah, it's like, you know, there's a lot of cute single people, especially in a large church.

It's a bigger pond to fish from. And yet some people may go to church out of insomnia. They can't sleep, but they know at least if they come to church, that tall, blonde preacher always puts me to sleep. Never fail. Then we all know people who always seem to have an excuse to never come to church under any circumstances.

I'm too busy, I'm too this, I got this going on. So there was one church who placed an announcement in the bulletin as if to anticipate that. The announcement read, to make it possible for everyone to attend church next Sunday, we're going to have a special no excuse Sunday. Cots will be placed in the foyer for those who say, Sunday is my only day to sleep in.

Mureen will be available for those with tired eyes from watching TV too late on Saturday night. We will have steel helmets for those who say, the roof would cave in if I ever came to church. Blankets will be provided for those who think the church is too cold. Fans for those who think the church is too hot. We'll have hearing aids for those who say the pastor speaks too softly and earplugs for those who say he preaches too loudly.

Scorecards will be available for those who wish to list the hypocrites present. There will be a hundred TV dinners for those who cannot go to church and cook dinner on the same day. One section will be devoted to trees and grass for those who like to seek God and nature.

And finally, the sanctuary will be decorated with both Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies for those who have never seen the church without them. In Ecclesiastes chapter 5, Solomon speaks. He speaks to us. You might think it's strange to turn to an Old Testament book for a New Testament subject, especially the church. But the book does begin by saying the words of the preacher. Solomon was the preacher. And the word for preacher in Greek, Ecclesiastes, sounds very similar to the very word for church, right? Ecclesia.

In fact, it is the same word in its root. But here the idea in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes, in Hebrew, kohalet, is one who gathers or one who congregates. The idea is that he is gathering, congregating different ideas and philosophies and looking at them through his life experiences. And here in chapter 5, he has been looking at people who are coming to the temple that he built in Jerusalem. They're coming for public worship. In chapter 5, verses 1 through 7 are a list of do's and don'ts for those who would attend public worship. I've given this message the title, The Art of Going to Church.

I'm going to tell you why I'm calling it that. I remember reading something that I memorized years ago. It goes like this, getting married is easy. Staying married is more difficult.

Staying happily married for a lifetime would be considered among the fine arts. And I think that's true with church. Going to church is easy.

Okay? Staying at church is more difficult. Staying faithfully committed to church over a lifetime would be considered a more difficult would be considered among the fine arts. So, the art of going to church and in Solomon's own words, he gives us three concerns or three things we should watch when it comes to attending public worship. First of all, we should watch our approach to God.

We should watch our affirmations of God and we should watch our attitude toward God. The first one, our approach to God, is mentioned in the first few verses and looked at. And he seems to allude that there are three possible approaches in public worship.

A ceremonial approach is the first one. Verse one, walk prudently when you go to the house of God and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. If you know anything about the Old Testament system of worship, you know that it involved a sacrifice.

You come to the temple, you bring an animal for a sacrifice. It's what God intended. It's what God prescribed, a sacrifice. Here, Solomon calls the sacrifice that some were bringing a sacrifice of fools. Now, why would he call it that?

Here's why. Because he noticed that there were people who were keeping the ceremonial law while breaking the moral law. They were going through the ritual, going through the motions, going through the ceremony, but living a double standard, worshipping idols, not treating their fellow neighbors with respect, a whole litany of things. That, says Solomon, is foolish. It's foolish to think you can just bring a lamb to God and that's it. Here, God, here's my sacrifice. It's foolish to think, well, I came to church and said a few prayers.

It's foolish to think I just got to write a check. It's foolish to try to cover up with a ceremony or a ritual, a reality that speaks of something different. Perhaps the best example that I can think of is the first king of Israel, Saul. Saul tried to cover up a life of disobedience with the ritual of sacrifice. It was the sacrifice of fools. He came back from a battle and he disobeyed God. God said, get rid of everything, even the animals. And he brings back the best of the animals for himself. But this is what he says, I've brought the best animals back to sacrifice to the Lord. And the prophet said to him, listen, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams. It's amazing to me that the very God who said, bring lambs, bring turtle doves, make sacrifices and wrote about them in detail through his emissaries in the Levitical law, that very God in Isaiah chapter one says this, I am sick of your sacrifices, says the Lord. Don't bring me any more burnt offerings.

I don't want the fat of your rams or other animals. Why would God say that? He came up with the idea because once again, they were keeping ceremonial law, but breaking the moral law in their own personal lives. And God doesn't separate the two. There is a belief system and it's given the theological name, sacerdotalism.

I don't care if you ever remember the word, if you want to remember it, you'll impress your friends at least. Sacerdotalism is the giving of sacraments by ordained clergy that dispense grace. It's the belief system that an ordained clergy will go to a ritual of giving sacraments, thus their words dispensing grace. So many will hide behind that and they'll say, well, I've been baptized while living immorally. Well, I've been confirmed while living immorally. Well, I've gone through communion while living immorally. It's a cover-up and God never separates what is brought, i.e. the sacrifice, with the person bringing it. We see this in the very first sacrifice with Cain and Abel. Remember those two brothers who brought their sacrifice to the Lord and God received one and didn't receive the other? And Cain got very, very angry and God said to Cain, Cain, why are you so angry?

If you did well or if you lived right, would you not be accepted? You see, I'm not accepting you because you're not living right. And so that is the ceremonial approach. There's a second way to approach God and that is the superficial approach. Verse 2, Do not be rash with your mouth. Do not let your heart utter anything hastily before God.

God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes through much activity and a fool's voice is known by his many words.

Now, this is the approach of words using the mouth, speech. And notice in verse 2, he speaks about rash speech. That's hurrying, that's rushing through the prayer list just to get it done.

Get through with it, get it over with, hurry up with church, get it over with, rash. Verse 3 is much speech, filling your prayers with flowery words. They never impress God, but they might impress other people around. You'll recall that Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6, And when you pray, do not be like the heathen who think that they will be heard by their many words. That's exactly what the false prophets of Baal in the Old Testament were trying to do.

Remember the contest with Elijah on Mount Carmel? And the Bible says they cried out to Baal from morning until noon. That's a long prayer meeting.

And they were repeating and repeating and repeating their words. And Elijah comes in and says just a few words, but they're so heartfelt and they were to the right God and his prayers were answered. I heard about one famous rabbi around the New Testament era whose prayer was recorded and it had 19 adjectives before God was even mentioned. Something like holy, righteous, magnificent, splendorous, omnipotent, omnipresent, God.

19 adjectives before God is even mentioned. Thinking that if I just add more flowery words, that that's what God requires. There's a little boy in church and everybody was praying and he had his head bowed and he was praying and loud enough for the pastor to hear him. Here's his prayer.

Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo. Pastor afterwards said, excuse me, I'm glad you're praying first of all, but why Tokyo? He said, look preacher, I just came from school and took my geography test and I'm asking God that he will make Tokyo the capital of France. He got the answer wrong on the test, but if I just say it long enough, maybe God will get it done. And some folks, I think when you get them around church, it's like a switch goes off. The God talk turns on. Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus, praise the Lord.

That can also just be shallow enough to cover up something else. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, said, in prayer, it's better to have a heart without words than to have words without a heart. Now, the third approach is the sincere approach.

This is the right one. Go back to verse one and notice the opening command, walk prudently when you go to the house of God, walk prudently. If you have an old King Jimmy version, it says, keep thy foot, keep thy foot. We would say, watch your step or walk carefully when you go to the house of God. The idea is to come prepared.

So I have a question. Don't answer it out loud, just in your heart. How do you prepare for coming to church?

Besides doing your hair up, picking out an outfit, cologne, perfume, whatever. How else do you prepare? How do you prepare inwardly? And may I just suggest that just a basic, when you open your eyes in the morning, you're on your bed, your eyes open Sunday morning, before your feet have been hit the ground, you say, Lord, I commit this day to you. I commit this week to you. I pray that you would speak to me through your word. I pray that you would deal with me through your word.

I want to hear from you. Now, why is it so important to be careful or to walk prudently or to be prepared? Verse one, it says, draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. We should be prepared because God wants to speak to us. That's why. God has something to say to us.

That's why. If you were to go to the White House or to Congress or to the United Nations and bring a request, I guarantee you, you wouldn't just come, you'd come prepared. You think about what you're going to say, you think about the attitude that you're going to bring, you would think about your proper behavior in that setting. So why not be prepared before God when we gather? The New Living Translation says, if you are prepared before God, you are prepared before God, renders verse one of chapter five, as you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. You don't get any clearer than that. I remember somebody once told me, skip, God gave you two ears and one mouth.

Follow that ratio. In other words, we should be listening twice as much as we are talking. And do you know that you can worship with your ears? I don't mean that you have to make your ears kind of go like this, like you're praising the Lord, like little hands lifted up. When I say worship with your ears, talking about, Lord, I am going to listen to what you have to say to me. That is my worship to you. You can worship with your ears. So why are you attending church?

Is it out of obligation and ritual or is there a deeper passion that keeps you coming back? We'll talk more about how to make it the latter instead of the former when we resume this teaching next time. But for now, let's get a few thoughts from Skip and Lenya today about how we should view the church.

Lenya? I'm really loving this series. And today we were challenged to evaluate our personal approach to God or motivation for going to church. And I think that's a good question. Why do you go to church?

Yeah. And a lot of us might say, you know, I want a nice cushy pew or, you know, tickle my with some sermon or very rarely do we look at it for what we can give to church, that we are the body of Christ, where his hands, his feet, his fingers. And so when we go to church, we have this opportunity to give, not just receive.

And so how can we cultivate a sincere approach to God and have the right motive when we go to church? Yeah, you know, I was just thinking as you were talking, if we were to go to the White House or to the United Nations, if we were to make some kind of an appearance in such a place like that, we would go prepare. We're going to think about what we're going to wear, what we're going to say, who we're going to be with.

We would come with some preparation. So it just makes sense that if you're going to come and meet with God in a place where all God's people are going to meet together, they're all going to get dressed, come to one place, that you want to have a little bit of thought before you get there. So you're saying pray before you go to church?

I'm saying prepare. And part of it is to pray. Is to pray, you know, Samuel said, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. So he was in prayer, inviting God very intentionally to speak to him with the intent that he was going to hear what God said and go do what he said. I think if we were to come to church with that attitude, speak, Lord, I'm listening.

I'm listening that I might obey. That's the idea in that Hebrew text. Boy, I think church would be a whole lot different. Also, you mentioned giving, you know, we have been given a gift, a spiritual gift, some kind of capability that only we have that only we can use to meet somebody else's need. If we don't find a way to exercise that gift, then we're really not being part of the church.

We're being a spectator. We're watching church like we watch a movie. But it's only when we connect with others and give the gift that has been given to us by the Lord as believers does it really satisfy. I remember in one of your teachings talking about the tater family and that we don't want to be hesitators or vegetators or procrastinators, but we really should be participators and really be involved. So when you come to church, make sure that you're bringing something to the table. And the best part is you bring it, and God multiplies it, and your life is blessed as a result of it. You can't outgive God with your time, your talents, your personality, all that you have. And when you bring that to church, then he just brings in a bumper crop, a harvest that's glorious. Well, thanks for joining us today, Skip and Laniya. You can also ask us for a copy of today's message, The Art of Going to Church.

It's available for just $4 plus shipping when you call us at 1-800-922-1888 or order online at connectwithskip.com. Do you know you can make a lasting impact in this world for Christ? One way is by supporting this ministry as we share the good news of Jesus to the world. Just visit connectwithskip.com and come back next time as we talk more about the art of going to church and how we can all perfect that art right here in Connect with Skip, Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.