Is It OK to Skip Church for Our Kid’s Soccer Games?

Is it okay to skip church for our kids' soccer games? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch us on YouTube, and you can always email us a question at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

First up today, let's go to John calling from Missouri. John, what's your question for Adriel? I have a question about prayer. A few weeks ago or months ago, we had a Lord's Supper, and the pastor prayed to the Father, prayed to the Son, and then he prayed to the Spirit. And I confronted him after the ceremony or service and asked him about the praying to the Spirit.

And he said, it's all right. But I've heard before in the past that on a radio program, they said don't pray to the Spirit. I found in Jude, verse 20, it says pray in the Spirit. I found another place in Galatians, I think it was, and Paul wrote, said pray in the Spirit. So my question is, Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, but did he show them to pray to the Spirit? John, thank you for that question, and just for all the thought that you put into it. I love that you're searching the Scriptures.

I love that you're having these conversations with your pastor, digging in. I would say it is perfectly fine to pray to the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Holy Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, one in essence, undivided. So we can pray to the Father, we can pray to the Son, we can pray to the Holy Spirit. In fact, there was actually a controversy really early on in the church, and there was this great work that was produced out of that controversy written by a guy named Basil. He was one of the early church fathers, and it was this treatise on the Holy Spirit. Part of the catalyst that got this treatise going was a debate about worshiping essentially the Holy Spirit, giving glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit in our song and in our prayers. Now, while that's true, and I think there's nothing wrong with praying to the Holy Spirit, ordinarily in Scripture you do find that the pattern of prayer is praying to the Father through Jesus Christ, our mediator, the Son, in the Spirit, praying always in the Holy Spirit, as you quoted there from Jude. And so that is a helpful way to pray and also to remind us that we approach God's throne of grace because we have a great high priest, Jesus Christ, who has made atonement for our sins and welcomed us into the family of God so we can come with confidence.

And so ordinarily I think that's the pattern of prayer that we see and that we can follow, that we ought to follow, but there's nothing wrong with praying to and praising the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In fact, I think that's something that we need to see more of in our churches, Jon, and part of the reason for that is because we often don't have that rich, robust Trinitarian language in our worship services. And so we're not worshiping the Holy Trinity, and when we don't worship the Holy Trinity, God as he's revealed himself to us in the Scriptures, most of the time what we're left with is just speculating about the Holy Trinity. And that's what you find in a lot of evangelical churches is like, well, we believe in God and he's a Trinity and we're trying to figure out what that means and we're coming up with all these illustrations and analogies to try to define it, if you will. But the Trinity is not so much the God that we speculate about, it's the God that we adore as he's revealed himself to us in the Bible. And so we ought to pray and praise, pray to and praise the Holy Trinity. And so appreciate that question, and your pastor, and may the Lord bless you and your church. Hey Jon, thanks so much for your question. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. Some great questions lately. People really dig into God's word, as Jon did.

Have to appreciate that. Let's go to Alonzo in Euclid, Ohio. Alonzo, what's your question for Pastor Adrian? Hello Pastor, I was just, I have a question regarding belief held by the Jehovah Witness organization. And it's that 144,000 mentioned in Revelation are the anointed class, and they take it as a literal number. And then they say the great multitude, or the great crowd is the earthly class. So the 144 class go to heaven, and the earthly class live on earth. I just want to hear your thoughts and see what you think about that. Yeah, hey, thanks for the question, Alonzo.

I think that it's just wrong. So one, we have to understand when we're reading the book of Revelation, we're reading apocalyptic literature, prophecy. And so oftentimes in the book of Revelation, you have numbers that are used symbolically.

And you see this throughout the book. I mean, earlier in the book of Revelation, it talks about the seven spirits of God. Well, there aren't seven holy spirits. Or Christ is depicted as this lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. And so we have to understand the genre that we're reading in the scriptures if we're going to rightly interpret it. I remember when I was a newer believer, reading this section of the book of Revelation and think, oh no, there's only going to be 144,000 people in heaven.

I really better get to work so I can be a part of that list. And I think that that's the sort of idea here. But what John in this vision is not saying is that there are only going to be 144,000 in heaven. This number of perfection, if you will, the people of God, this fullness, this great multitude worshiping the Lord from every tribe, tongue and nation. And if we were really going to take that literally, if Jehovah's Witnesses really believe that they were a part of the 144,000, you could take that a little bit further and begin to ask questions like, well, are you a virgin? Which tribe of Israel are you a part of or do you identify with?

Simeon, Levi, so on and so forth. It's just not consistent the way in which they understand this passage of scripture. And so I would point them to some of the other resources that are out there that can help them like our Revelation Bible study that we came out with some time ago.

And maybe, Alonzo, if you stay on the line, we could send that to you. But appreciate your question, brother. I am concerned by various cults that are out there that misunderstand the scripture, that get the identity of Jesus Christ wrong, whether it's the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons. People who say, we believe the Bible, but they twist the scriptures and misinterpret the Bible.

We have to be on guard, brothers and sisters, because it happens all over the place. And so we need to know the word of God well. And may God bless you as you continue to dig into the scriptures, Alonzo. Amen. Great explanation on that one, Adriel.

Thanks so much. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you listen to this program on a regular basis and you find it helpful, we want to ask you to prayerfully consider joining what we call our inner core. That's a group of people who support this program on a monthly basis. It's an offering or gift of $25 a month. And when you join the inner core, there are actually some special resources that we'll be sending you.

And Adriel is going to tell you a bit about that. Yeah, brothers and sisters, what a joy it is for us to be able to do this every day. For me as a pastor to be able to have this opportunity to open up the scriptures with you, I am so grateful to the Lord. And if you have been blessed by the work that we do, by this broadcast, would you consider joining the inner core?

Would you pray about it? It's a monthly donation of $25 or more, and we send you this book, Core Christianity, written by a friend of mine, a professor I had in seminary, Dr. Michael Horton, as well as some other encouraging resources that you'll get throughout the month. And so, again, if you've been blessed by this broadcast, consider joining the inner core. All you have to do is go to our website at corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. That's one word corechristianity.com forward slash inner core to learn more about joining that special group of people. And one of those resources that Adriel mentioned is a special video devotional that he sends out each month to our inner core members. So consider joining that today, if you would. Well, let's get to an email that came in from one of our listeners. This is from Tina, and she says, Is it a sin to worship by live streaming instead of in person when our teenager has a soccer game that necessitates being on the field by 1130 a.m. on Sundays?

We live stream the service from 10 to 1110 from the parking lot of the field. According to an elder and our pastor, we should not attend soccer games on Sundays, and we should prioritize church only. I'm conflicted. As a parent, we do teach our kids the importance of God and worship.

However, because of the pandemic and the lack of games for the past two seasons, their club teams are doing more Sunday games. What do you think? Yeah, this is a big question.

I have a lot of thoughts on this. In fact, so many thoughts on this that I wrote an article some some years ago, actually, now back in 2019 at corechristianity.com called Is it a sin to miss church? If you've ever had that question, go to corechristianity.com and type that in.

Is it a sin to miss church? You know, one, my kids are in soccer as well. In fact, we just signed them up. It's been a lot of fun, but we want to help instill in them a sense of the priority of the local church. So we, whenever there's a game or if there's a game, we actually haven't had one scheduled yet on Sunday, but we've committed to saying, look, we want our kids to know that the priority is worshiping with the people of God.

Now, I realize that that's going to sound crazy to a lot of people. I think so many people today, we just kind of have a low view of the church of what takes place when we gather together for worship. But we really we really need to recover, I think, a biblical understanding of what's happening when the people of God come together. Read the book of Hebrews chapter 12. I mean, the author of the Hebrews says when we gather together with God's people for worship, we're coming before the heavenly Jerusalem, before a myriad of saints and angels to hear the good news of the gospel, the blood of Jesus Christ, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. The author of the Hebrews says that's what we're doing. We're coming together with the church here on earth, with our brothers and sisters here.

But we're actually joining the great choir in heaven that is singing praises around the throne of God. Years ago, I sat down with with a friend of mine who was my pastor at the time. I was an intern at this church, and he was a huge fan of the Chicago Bears, the NFL football team. And he and I were talking.

We're having one of our internship meetings, and we're going back and forth. And he said something to me that shocked me at the time. He said, Adriel, even if I had tickets to see the Bears play in the Super Bowl on a Sunday morning, I wouldn't go. And I thought, you know, you're crazy.

When are the Bears ever going to make it to the Super Bowl? But no, I really thought you're crazy. Like, who would skip that opportunity? And I sort of laughed. And he looked at me, and he didn't laugh.

He just had a straight face. And he said, Where would I rather be on earth than with God's people around God's throne, singing God's praises? Now, if that's really what's taking place, if we're really gathering around the throne of God, the true and the living God, to receive the gifts that he gives to his people through his word, through the ordinances that Jesus instituted, well, then, yeah, I mean, I could see why he said it the way that he did.

The problem that I had was I just didn't really believe that. And yet that's what the Bible teaches is happening when we gather together for worship. And so what I would say is what I would encourage you with is this, recover that beautiful, robust picture of what's taking place when we come together as the people of God. Read Hebrews chapter 12.

Meditate upon it. Think about who it is that we're gathering before and meeting. Yeah, there's a lot of other things that we could do on a Sunday morning recreationally, but God calls us to him, up to the heavenly Mount Zion, up to the heavenly Jerusalem. The question is not, is God going to be there?

The question is, are we going to show up when he calls us to worship him? And so that's my take on this. And again, I know that that could come off as controversial. I know that a lot of people think, well, gosh, what's the big deal?

It's just a soccer game here and there. But let me add one more thing, because this is such an important question. We are helping our children to understand what they should prioritize in life as well. Ordinarily speaking, I mean, obviously, right, the salvation is a work of God's Spirit, we know. But ordinarily speaking, our children are not going to be more committed to Jesus than we are.

There's been a number of research that's been done. Christian Smith, he's a sociologist, he's talked about this, he actually just wrote another book on this, just the impact, the influence that parents have on their children and their faith and what they believe. Well, a part of that is building these habits into our own lives and prioritizing them and setting the example for them. If we treat church as this thing that we can just sort of set aside and, oh, I'm too tired or I want to go to a soccer game or I want to do this or do that. We're teaching our children something about corporate worship and we're teaching them something, frankly, that's not biblical about corporate worship. What we want to do is teach them to prioritize it, to love it, because of what's taking place when we gather together. And so we really appreciate this question. And as I said, check out that article over at corechristianity.com, is it a sin to miss church?

And let me ask you a follow up to that, Adriel. So in a situation like this, as I said, they are doing online streaming of their worship service. What if their son made a commitment to this soccer league prior to these these games being scheduled on Sunday? So they I know you would talk about the importance of following through on your commitments. Let's say this kid, the coaches said, will you make a commitment to all of our weekend games? Then they switch it up on them and say, now we're having games on Sunday because of the pandemic.

What do you do in a case like that? Yeah. Yeah. And it is important for us to follow through with our commitments. But I think that our primary commitment is to the true and the living God. When we were baptized into Christ, God placed his name upon us. He calls us to walk with him, to honor him.

And God is the one who calls us to worship him, to gather together with his people. So I recognize, right, like there are conflicts here and there can be conflicts, but I would say that the priority has to go to the commitment that we've made to the Lord. And so and again, are there other ways for us to recreate other days of the week? We have we have seven other days of the week, six other days of my bad. Yeah.

And so there are six other days of the week to have to go and play soccer and do those kinds of things. I would just say, man, committing first and foremost to prioritizing worship with the people of God is so important. And it's something that we need to recover in the church today.

Good counsel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question for Adriel, you can always leave a voicemail. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. You can call 24 hours a day, 833-843-2673.

Here's a question. We came across a voicemail from one of our listeners named Caleb. Hello, my name is Caleb. And my question was about Christophany, the Christ period in the Old Testament, and your thoughts on that. Just curious if you could give me a call back.

Thanks. Hey, Caleb, appreciate that question. So these these pre incarnate appearances of the word, the eternal son of the Father in the Old Testament, where you have this sort of mysterious figure that presents himself to the people of God, the patriarchs, people in the story of God who's identified with the Lord himself. In particular, I think of the angel of the Lord throughout the scriptures, appearing first in the book of Genesis, actually at first to Hagar. She's fleeing from Abraham and Sarah in Genesis Chapter 16. And I mean, if you're asking me, do I think that these are legitimate, that Christ really is manifesting himself in some way, that the word is really manifesting himself some way here in the Old Testament?

I would say yes. This is really actually quite amazing when you think about it. The Lord coming to his people in this unique way, oftentimes intervening to bring salvation or to bring judgment, to bring curse even. And so this is something that we see throughout the Old Testament. And certainly having a fuller understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity as God continues to continue to reveal himself throughout his redemptive revelation in the Bible, we can make better sense of these instances where you have this figure like the angel of the Lord who's identified with the Lord himself appearing and even receives worship at times.

And really quite remarkable. And so knowing what we know on the basis of all of God's revelation, I think we can look at those stories and say, wow, you know, like Christ was very much at work throughout scripture. The word, the eternal son of the father was very much at work throughout redemptive history. And that's precisely what the Bible teaches. You know, Peter says that the prophets had the spirit of Christ in them as they were prophesying about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would be later revealed. And so it's one of the things I think that testifies to the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible.

And it's just really amazing to see. And so that's my take on the Christophanies. And thank you for that question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Let's get to another voicemail that we received from one of our listeners last week. Is getting in vitro a sin? Should we, as Christians, get in vitro? Hey, thank you for that question. This is another just very complex question.

And so first let me say, no, it isn't necessarily a sin to do IVF and vitro fertilization. But there are a lot of practical things to consider if this is something that an individual is thinking about. If you're looking for a book, a helpful book on questions like this that goes a lot deeper, then I'm going to go here. It's a book by Dr. David van Drewnen called Bioethics and the Kingdom of God.

And it's just a wonderful resource. And there's, I think, an entire chapter on IVF that basically unpacks the fact that, look, we can, by God's common grace, give thanks for some of these medical advancements. But there are a lot of other things that we want to take into consideration.

Oftentimes with IVF, people are taking and freezing multiple embryos that they don't ever plan on or intend on using. So we have to be really careful in whatever we're doing and how we're doing it that we're also valuing life, which is a core tenet, if you will, of the ethics of the Christian faith. We're called to value life, to care for life, to care for the vulnerable. So that's something that we also have to take into consideration. And so, no, it's not outright sinful, but there are a lot of other things you're going to want to take into consideration as well as you go through this process. So thanks for that question. Here's an email we received here at Core Christianity.

This is from Rosemary. She says, in Samuel 12-14, Samuel gives Israel a commandment to fear, serve, obey and not rebel against the Lord. As we know, there's always a judgment connected to God's commands. My question is this, with everything that's going on in our world today, would it be a misinterpretation for Christians today to focus on fearing, serving and obeying the Lord and not to rebel in order to seek God's favor? As I understand this, it's because of our acts and choices that we are at fault with God, and restoration is through us changing, not through us fighting our enemies. If we keep our focus on Christ Jesus and the hope of his coming, won't he help us purpose in our heart to endure unto the end? Rosemary, the things that we see there in 1 Samuel 12-14, the call to fear the Lord, to serve him, to obey his voice, not to rebel against his law, not to rebel against any of his commandments, those are all things that we could take for ourselves.

That's a great reminder for each of us. We're called to fear the Lord. We're called to obey the Lord. We also need to understand where we are there in the history of redemption. We're talking about God's people under the old covenant in particular who were called to do these things so that they might live long in the land, so that they wouldn't be cast out of the land.

We know through having the entire story that eventually they were cast out of the land for their idolatry and disobedience. We're not in the exact same situation as they were. That doesn't mean that we're not called to do those things. We are called to do those things. We're not expecting that if we do those things, God is going to bless our country in particular, that he's going to give us his covenant promises, his covenant blessings, those kinds of things.

That's a very old covenant. We as the church are called continually to do these things, to fear the Lord, to turn to the Lord, to repent of sin, to obey the commandment of the Lord. There is blessing involved with that, namely just the blessings of obedience, of a faithful walk with Jesus. We're all called to that. But we have to be careful that we don't assume that if I do these things, then all of a sudden God is going to bless America or something like that.

No, this is how the church is a blessing to the rest of the whole world and how through the ministry of the church and the proclamation of the gospel ultimately, the gospel is spreading throughout the countries of this world. So I really appreciate your question here, and I want to encourage you to take that, brothers and sisters, that encouragement there in 1 Samuel chapter 12, for yourself. Let's fear the Lord. Let's turn from our sins. Let's obey his word ultimately to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.