Together In the Christian Life - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December ninth. While it's often easier to watch a church service online these days, there's more to church than what happens on Sunday morning. Here's part one of Together in the Christian Life.

Many professing Christians say that they don't really and truly need to be a part of a church because they can live their Christian life fine without a church. Well, I understand you're saying that, but let me ask you a question. Is that the will of God?

You may say, well, for me, it's the will of God. Well, is that what the Word of God says? Well, I don't know about that part, but I just know that I can live it without the church.

Well, let me ask you this. What's the implication of that? If you can live it without the church, what's the implication?

So, I want to ask two questions in this message and I want you to think soberly about them. Now, I want to say right up front, I realize there are people who cannot go to church because of health reasons. They would if they could, but they literally can't. I understand that. There are some people who live in distant places where the church is not anywhere close by. I understand that. There are some people who live in little towns or big towns, whatever it might be, and they can't find the church that's preaching the truth of the Word of God. And they know the difference.

I understand that. That does not mean that the church is not important or that they shouldn't belong if at all possible. I just want to ask two questions, and if you're one of those persons who goes to church, fine, or maybe if you don't, I'm not questioning your salvation.

I want you to think about these two questions. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to the tenth chapter of Hebrews, and I want to begin reading in this nineteenth verse, and I'll just sort of explain these verses as we go along for a moment before we come to the heart of the message. Beginning in verse nineteen of Hebrews chapter ten, the writer says, Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, that is, in His presence by His blood at the cross, by a new and living way, which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. That is, when He died on the cross, the veil was rent from top to bottom, and opened the way so that anyone can come to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, which is Jesus, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with a pure water. That is, we have been sanctified. Then he says, Let us hold fast, that is, take a firm grip. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. That is, our hope is our strong anticipation that God will fulfill His promise, because it's His nature to do so. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see today drawing near.

So, what I'd like to ask is this. If a person can live a good Christian life, walking obedience to God and do His will, and accomplish His purpose in their life alone, apart from the church, then why did Jesus establish the church? That is, if a person can live that kind of life, then why did He establish the church? And the Scripture says in Matthew chapter sixteen, very clearly the Scripture says that Jesus said, speaking to His disciples, He asked them, He said, Now who do people say that I am? Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus replied by saying to him, Peter, you're right.

You're right. And He says, Upon this rock I will build My church. Now, you don't build the body of Christ on a man. You build the body of Christ on the Son of God. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And so Jesus was saying, upon this foundation, what foundation? The foundation that Jesus is the Messiah, He's the Son of God, He's the Savior of the world, man's only hope. Upon this truth, He says, I will build My church. And if you'll think about it, that is what the church has been built upon, the person of Jesus Christ. And you and I have seen over time in history, all kind of isms have come and gone and the church is still here and growing by leaps and bounds all over the world.

Why? Because it's His church, not man's church. It's not a denomination. In fact, God did not establish denominations. So people say, well, I don't, they're so, it's so confusing today with all these denominations. Forget that. Find you a church that's teaching and preaching the Word of God.

And so, whatever those excuses may be, ask yourself this question. If Jesus said, and He says this in the twelfth chapter of Romans, that the church is the body of Christ, that is, when He left and ascended, He left His followers as His physical living body. We are the body of Christ. That is, it's our hands now through which He works, our eyes through which He sees, our ears through which He hears, and it's our life through which He works.

We are His body. This is the church. So when I'm talking about church, I'm not only talking about the large corporate body of believers all over the world, whether they're Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Americans, or Brazilians or whatever it might be, but there's also local churches. And if you look in the book of Galatians and Colossians and Philippians and Ephesians and all, these were local assemblies. And so, if a person can be a good Christian, live a godly life, fulfill God's purpose in their life, and understand the things of the Word of God, and do all of that with no assembling with other people, then my question is, what's the implication of that? When He says here, do not forsake the assembling together.

It's very important. Now, if that's not true, what's the implication of this? That is, if the church is not important, a local autonomous body of believers assembling together to worship and to be inspired and motivated and instructed and to do the work of the Lord, if that's not necessary, what's the implication?

Here's the first implication. That simply is that Jesus made a big mistake. He made a mistake by saying, I will establish my church if it's not important. That is, if we can go it alone in the Christian life and every single person do whatever they do individually without any relationship to any other Christian, then Jesus made a big mistake.

Because look at all the time we spend, look at all the resources we spend, all of our efforts to get the gospel all over the world. That is, if we can do it alone, why this whole idea of the church? It would mean that the assembling of ourselves together together on Sunday morning would be absolutely unnecessary.

And so, why do people do that? Of course, we would be saying that Christians don't need each other. We can grow spiritually on our own without any relationships. And think about this, the Christian life is all about relationships. My relationship to Him, my relationship to others. Your Christian life is your relationship to Him, but it's also your relationship to others.

And I want to show you why that's so true here. And so, every believer would be expected to be interpreting the Word of God according to their own personal view. In other words, the implications of being able to live a godly life and do the will of God in your life, fulfill His purpose in your life without having any relationship to a local body of believers. The implication is somebody made a big mistake and it was Jesus because it wasn't necessary.

But you and I know that's not true. For example, let's say that you're a believer but you don't go to church. How do you worship? Do you sing? Do you sing to yourself?

That'd be interesting. Do you pray? I certainly hope you do. Do you read the Word of God? Do you study the Word of God?

How do you know you're interpreting the Word of God correctly? What good thing are you doing alone with no relationship to other Christians now, that is, and how are you living out your life? Would you say you're living out your life according to the will of God? Well, according to this passage of Scripture it says, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. And what about your spiritual gifts that God's given you?

What are you doing with those? Every single one of His children has a spiritual gift. It could be service, it could be prophecy, it could be exaltation or giving or mercy, organization, all those seven major gifts. That is, God's given all these gifts, so how do you exercise those with no relationship to other people? And the truth is, you live your life in relationships. In your business, you have relationships.

How much can any one person do? It's what we do together. We organize together.

It's togetherness, it's relationships. And when Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it, what was He saying? He wasn't saying, I'm going to build this organization.

I'm going to build this body. I'm going to build a relationship with myself and with those who follow me with each other and my goals are many and through that group, I'm going to accomplish my purpose in life. So, if the church is not important, if the local body is not important, then the implications are pretty bad. Jesus made a mistake wasting our time. Why are we sitting here? Why are we assembling ourselves together? Why don't we just go home and just pray by ourselves, sing by ourselves?

You see, it's not your personal opinion you have to go on. What's the will of God for your life? Why did Jesus say, I will establish my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and I have a mission for the church?

What's the implication? If you say you don't need that, you don't want to be a part of that, then Jesus made a mistake and He did something that was not necessary. But on the other hand, let's ask ourselves the question, why did He establish the church? I know it's divided into denominations and all that kind of thing, but you don't have to let that bother you. You have to choose to belong to a body of people with whom you can relate, who believe as you believe, and who are teaching the truth of God's Word.

They will give you guidance and direction for your life, strength and help in times of difficulty and hardship and suffering and sorrow, which all of us need in our life many times. So, the question is this, what is God's purpose for saying, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together? That is, we are to assemble ourselves together, we are to worship as a body.

Well, look at what the church does. For example, the first thing we are to do and that is we meet together and we worship. We sing and we praise the Lord and give Him thanks for the good things that He's done for us. We pray and recall His blessings in our life, make our request. We give of our finances and obedience to Him and so, and what do we do? We fellowship with each other.

Our people come in, they shake hands and they greet each other how you've been doing. In fact, in many places, the church is the one time many people in some cities get together the whole week. It's their time to get together because everybody goes in a different direction.

The city of Atlanta's a pretty good size and I think about many other cities that are larger and people assemble together, they go to church. They come from all directions. They travel all over the world, they travel all over the world.

They travel all over the world, they all travel all over the world. We have this camaraderie, this fellowship, this intimacy, this sense of happiness and joy. So, you and I sit and stand and sing and pray and worship Him in His presence.

It's a whole lot more enjoyable singing together than singing by ourselves. And why did He tell us to come together? To worship Him, because what happens? It lifts our spirit and what happens is theologically we are being educated those songs are theologically correct and if you think about the song when we all get to heaven and all the Awesome hymns that we have to praise God with You don't need the church. You don't belong to a fellowship you miss you see you don't know what you're missing Well, I went to church one time and they had a fight.

Well, go find another one. Go Find another one So first of all the purpose of the church we assemble ourselves together to worship him The second thing is this he wanted us to assemble together because he wants us to have instruction in the Word of God go back to 2nd Timothy a chapter 2 for a moment and Look at this passage 2nd Timothy 2 and Paul's writing to young Timothy and giving him some instruction He says in this 15th verse of 2nd Timothy 2 listen He says be diligent to present yourselves approved to God As a workman who does not need to be ashamed Accurately handling the word of truth. Let me ask you a question without any biblical instruction in your life How much truth would you know? If he was just left up to you to read the Bible and figure it out then you say well does that mean that? We can't study the Word of God without having a past No I'm not saying that I'm simply saying this that the Word of God says that I'm we're Responsible for reading and studying and praying of the scripture and interpreting properly now Here's what gets people in trouble What gets people in trouble is they find them a passage they like and so they go after that one They say here's what I believe.

Well, see that's the way denominations start That's the way groups start and cults start and people they pick and choose this it listen. This is the only way to properly honestly Genuinely interpret the Word of God. Are you listening say amen and that is you compare scripture with scripture Not scripture with my opinion not scripture of what I want not scripture of what I don't like but what in other words there are no contradictions in the Word of God and so God has given us His Word and He's called men and women to honestly and genuinely Rightly interpret the Word of God Does that mean that we will always agree one of the wonderful things about the scriptures this you'll never exhaust it You can study for a thousand years and God still be talking But here's the warning and then I want you to look at this passage in the fourth chapter of 2nd Timothy and the first few Verses here. Listen to what he said to tell me he says I charge you in the presence of God and Jesus Christ Who is the judge of the living and the dead and by the appearing of His kingdom? Preach the word be ready in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with great patience and instruction now watch this He says this is what I want you to do in the church for this reason watch this the third verse For the time will come When they will not endure sound doctrine But wanting to have their ears tickled They will accumulate for themselves teaches in accordance to their own desires and turn away their ears from the truth And will turn aside the myths One of the reasons that people get in trouble what they believe is because they listen to false doctrine Now notice what he says he says the time will come when they will not endure it. They don't want the truth They want something that tickles their ears Which is what he was saying is they want something that they want to hear When people tell you the Bible teaches name it claim it now you may be a name it claim it person But let me just say this You cannot find that in the Word of God You cannot It's the will of God that we want It's the purpose and plan of God for our lives just because I name something and claim something doesn't mean I'm going to get it The Bible teaches giving and receiving. Yes The reason that's so popular is because you tell me tickling your ears if somebody's going to promise you something for almost nothing Most people like to hear that or somebody says there's no such thing as a hell That's that's just the imagination laughs whether I want to believe there was if I were a lost person I wouldn't want to believe a lot of things in the Word of God. I Don't want to believe about accountability. I want to believe there's a hell I wouldn't want to believe any of that He says listen people They want their ears tickled and I'm simply saying to you this And when the body of Christ meets together, we meet together to be instructed in the truth of God's Word That's one of our reasons for getting together that's one of the reasons that he said don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some and Will turn away their ears from the truth because listen Satan has his message drawing people away from God and away from God's purpose and planning will for their life and so one of the primary purposes we meet together is for instruction in the truth and My desire for you is that you'd be wise enough to realize You have a responsibility before Almighty God to assemble with other believers to worship him and encourage each other and be Instructed in the truth of the Word of God and carry out the work that God has called you to do as a member of his fellowship Thank you for listening to together in the Christian life If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or in touch ministries stop by in touch dot o RG This podcast is a presentation of in touch ministries, Atlanta, Georgia