The Art of Going to Church-Part B

Does your relationship to God have a P.S.

attached to it? Oh, you're my Lord until... Lord, I'm committed to you unless... unless I don't get what I thought I should get from you in this relationship, then I'm going to take my spiritual ball and go home. Does your relationship with God have a P.S.? You know, most surveys report that around 40% of Americans attend church on a weekly basis.

However, there are some questions as to just how accurate that number may be. Many people, in order to present themselves in a better light, might just lie about going to church, and some consider attending regularly as being there on Christmas and Easter. Well, on today's broadcast, Pastor Skip explains how we shouldn't be so concerned with other people's church attendance, but with our own. How often do you go to church?

And more importantly, why do you go? We'll explore some answers to those questions in a moment, here on Connect with Skip, Weekend Edition. But first, here's what we have for you this month at ConnectWithSkip.com. New York Times bestselling author, Joel Rosenberg, is now based in Jerusalem, and he's releasing the new nonfiction book, Enemies and Allies. I've traveled with Joel to Middle East cities to meet with kings and crown princes. We sat together on the east lawn of the White House for the signing of the historic Abraham Accords, and I previewed his new book, Enemies and Allies. I can tell you it contains never before published quotes from behind closed door meetings with some of the most powerful and mysterious leaders in the Middle East. You will want to read this book. Enemies and Allies by Joel Rosenberg includes insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the most controversial leaders in the world. This is the first book of its kind. Almost nobody's ever had that chance to not just meet one of these major leaders, but to meet almost all of them, and then to get to tell the story in first-person language, come with me into the palace, into the motorcading, and come meet the most interesting, consequential, and controversial leaders in the entire Middle East. Enemies and Allies by Joel Rosenberg includes insights and analysis from the author's conversations with some of the most controversial leaders in the world. We'll send you a hardcover copy of Enemies and Allies as thanks for your gift of $35 or more.

To give, visit connectwithskipp.com or call 800-922-1888. Open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 5, and let's join Skip Heitzig for the rest of this message on the art of going to church. 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 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, 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 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 open. 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.

Walt Whitman, a great American poet, said, to have great poets, we must have great audiences. I would say to have great preachers, we must have great audiences. Listening, like Samuel who said, speak, Lord, your servant hears. That is the sincere approach. I'm going to do it carefully. I'm going to prepare carefully because God is going to speak. Now here's something else you can do besides just uttering that prayer before you get up in the morning.

If you have a computer, if you have a computer, you can go to a website, our website, and we always post what we're going to cover before Sunday morning and we give an outline. You could read through the passage, just meditate on it once before the Lord, have your heart ready to listen, reinforce it. Second, we should watch our affirmation of God. Verse four, when you make a vow, not if, but when you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God, that would be the priest in the Old Testament, that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? Now, this is referring to an ancient practice that happened in the temple. It was the making of vows. And a couple of places in the Old Testament law, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, cover making a vow before God. Now, here's the thing, they were never forced. God didn't say, you have to come and make a vow.

Never said that. But he gives the regulations for giving vows and the most important regulation is this, once you make a vow, once you make a promise, you do it. You keep it. You don't have to say it. You should do it. I'm not going to force you to do it. It should be out of your own heart. But once you make that vow, that affirmation, that commitment, now you keep it.

You do it. Solomon here is warning about two sins. One is making a vow with no intention at all of keeping that vow, which would be lying to God. The other one is making a vow, but delaying to keep it so that eventually you can get out of it.

But here's the point. The place of worship, when we gather together like this week by week, when we gather together like this week by week, it ought to be, I believe, it ought to be a time of commitment. It ought to be a time of making our vow to the Lord, our affirmation. So whenever we sing songs and read scripture and hear a sermon, we should always ask every week, what now? We should ask that, what now? And the answer should always follow, now I do what God spoke to me about doing.

That's what I do with it. I think it always should come to a decision. When Joshua gave a great sermon to the children of Israel in Joshua 25 or Joshua 24, he said, now choose for yourselves whom you will serve. When the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18, he said to the people of Israel, how long will you falter between two opinions? If Baal is God, worship him. If God is the Lord, worship him. Even Jesus did this in Matthew 16.

We've already covered that. He asked his followers, who do men say that I am? They gave various opinions. Then he said, who do you say that I am?

You see what he did? You make it personal now. You make a decision now, not what they say, but what about you? What do you say? Well, consider some of the vows that we've already made. One vow that we've already made is the vow to him, to God. We've all said, or most of us have said, I make you my Savior. I make you my Lord. I want you in control of my life.

I give you my life. Consider that vow. You made it before the Lord. Consider another vow that you've made before the Lord, if you're married to your spouse.

I don't exactly know what you said, but I bet it was something like this, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, love and to cherish until death. Yeah, not debt. There's an H in that word. You said it, death.

You said it. It was a vow that you made before God to your spouse. Maybe you made another vow to the body of Christ. Maybe you said to a small group leader, I'll be here every week. I'll help you set up or I'll be involved. You can count on me.

It's not that you have to do it, but once you do it, you do it. Once you say it. There was a man who was in love with a girl. His name is Tom. Her name was Diane. She had a picture that he wanted.

She gave it to him, but she wanted a copy of the picture, so he took it to a studio to get it copied. As he took it to the studio, they had to take it out of the frame, and they noticed on the back of the picture was the sweetest love note from Diane to Tom. It said this, my dearest Tom, I love you with all my heart. I love you more and more each day. I will love you forever. That's commitment. I'm yours for eternity. There it is, the promise. Eternity. Isn't that beautiful?

Signed, Diane. But then it said, P.S. If we ever break up, I want this picture back. So much for forever. So much for eternal love. Here's my question. Does your relationship to God have a P.S.

attached to it? Oh, you're my Lord until. Lord, I'm committed to you unless unless I don't get what I thought I should get from you in this relationship, then I'm going to take my spiritual ball and go home. Does your relationship with God have a P.S.? Or are you like those who try to bribe God? God, if you get me out of this mess, I'll give $500 to missions, I promise. Lord, if you heal me, I'll serve you the rest of my life. I have seen so many people in distress make commitments to God only when they get better to forget that they made any kind of commitment to God.

Now, right about now, you might be thinking, you know, I think I agree with Solomon. It's better not to make any commitment at all. I won't make any promise at all, then I don't have to keep any of them. Well, then that would place you in the category of ceremonial or superficial approach to God. I think the whole point is think through carefully what you say before the Lord. Let it be real, but be committed to when you hear to do by God's grace. And you know what'll happen if you do that? If week by week you make those kind of applications, I can guarantee you you'll be happy.

You'll be joyful. Jesus said to his disciples after he washed their feet and served them and he said, you guys need to do this? This is what he said, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them.

You get that? Not if you know these things, happy are you if you know these things. And then, by the way, you guys should know more things and then go to a place and take more notes and know more things and go to school and get a degree and know more things. He said, if you know these things, you'll be happy if you do them.

Do them if you do them. It's a commitment to take knowledge and move it into action. Third and finally, we are to watch our attitude toward God.

Verse 7, for in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity but fear God or have a reverential awe before the Lord. Now I think that attitude is the crowning virtue. I believe that attitude will make or break a church. Attitude in general impacts everything. Somebody once said life is 10 percent of what happens to you and 90 percent of how you respond to what happens to you. I think church is too.

I think the most significant decision we can make every Sunday morning is to make a choice regarding our attitude before the Lord. Now some people, and thankfully there's just some people, but some folks just have a bad attitude in general about life, about everything. And they hear something, nah, not going to work. What do you think about that? I don't like it. They get food, could be better. We call them no first people rather than yes first people. It's always no.

It's always negative. Bad attitude. So if they have a bad attitude about life, guaranteed they'll have a bad attitude about church. And let me say something else. God wants to fix that.

Oh let me say it even better. God is committed to fixing that attitude. With God it's all about our attitude.

It's all about our attitude. In fact Jesus noticed. He said two men went to the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee, one was a tax collector. The Pharisee lifted up his eyes and prayed with himself. He didn't even pray to God. He prayed with himself.

He said words out loud and he thought, boy I sound pretty good. But the other guy, the tax collector, bowed his head, beat his breast and said, God have mercy on me a sinner. Different attitude. Different attitude. Jesus was all about that attitude.

Said that man went home justified. Jesus also noticed that people were coming to temple, coming to church would be the equivalent. And they were giving their funds and some were doing it very ostentatiously to be known and seen by men. But there was one little widow who said, just a few cents. And she, according to Jesus, gave more than the rest of all those guys. Because of the attitude. The attitude. It was a sacrifice she gave. Well notice the wording.

Speaking of attitude here, don't miss the wording. In verse one, for example, the temple is called the house of, what? God. It's not just a stone building, says Solomon. This is the house of God. Verse four, when you make not just a promise but it says your vow to God. And verse seven, fear God. Here's the key in coming to church. This time, this place is for God. Is for God. It's all about him. It's not about me. It's not about us.

It's not about what did I get out of it. Though you will get out what God speaks to you. But we must never allow church to simply become another consumer driven commodity. It has become that. It has become that. It has become that in our country.

It has become that in our culture. I first heard a song a few years ago. I know that when I say it, you'll remember it. I first heard it.

I stopped. Something resonated with me. It was just so right on. It said, I'm coming back to the heart of worship because it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. And I heard that and I thought, yes, I resonated with that.

I need to get back to that. It's about him. It's about my relationship with him. Now, if some folks were honest, really honest, they would be singing, because it's all about me. It's all about me, Jesus.

That would be honest. People have made worship about them and how they feel about it and what it does for them, rather than about honoring him. But when we gather, when a passage is read, we listen. We listen because it's the word of God. And when a covenant is made or a promise is made, we keep it because it's a vow before God. And when we sing a praise song or we utter a prayer, we realize we're praying to God, not to anybody else. God. R.A. Torrey, Ruben Torrey, who influenced my early Christian walk, said, we should never utter one syllable of prayer in public or in private until we are definitely conscious that we're coming into the presence of God.

And actually praying to him. So, this morning, what we walk away with, I pray, is a healthy self-examination. Examining our approach to God. And we have to ask ourselves, is it just duty? Is it formal?

Am I just doing and going through the motions? Or is it superficial? We want to examine our hearts.

That's very healthy. Not just examine our approach, but what about our affirmation? Covenants that we make.

Do we commit ourselves consistently with the verbal integrity of following through on the promise? And third is the attitude. The attitude. What attitude do we have when we gather with God's people? This is the house of God. These are prayers to God. I do this out of the fear of God, the respect of God.

All of that, Solomon would warn his listeners and his readers. The art of gathering for public worship. The art of coming to church. While it may never be part of any fine arts program, going to church is one of the finest arts any of us can engage in. I hope this study has encouraged you to pursue that art and to learn how to enjoy more fully the great beauty it produces. And if you'd like a copy of today's teaching, The Art of Going to Church, it's available on CD for just $4 plus shipping, when you call us at 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com. And join us next time as we begin several teachings that will help us grow and help our churches grow, 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.