God’s Word for You

Acts 16:13 Come to worship

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, September 25, 2020

13 On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate to the riverbank where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

Jewish tradition required ten men to be present to form a synagogue. We have no such restrictions from the Bible: “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). Here in Philippi, there was no synagogue, but some Jewish women had gathered at the riverbank for worship. Paul and his companions had expected something like this; maybe someone from the city had told them about the group.

This is a good place to remember why we worship together in church. There are four relationships to keep in mind as we think about worship, and all of them are important.

  1, Our relationship with God.
  2, Our relationship with God’s word.
  3, Our relationship with the other believers who are there.
  4, Our relationship with those who can’t be there.

Let’s take a quick look at each one.

1, Our relationship with God. In worship, we come before God to hear his blessings and his word, but also to confess our sins and be reminded that our sins are forgiven. Someone who stays away from church simply doesn’t have the same access to the gospel and the sacraments that we have in weekly worship. The more a person stays away from the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament, the more that person will wonder whether they’re forgiven at all, and perhaps even look for other ways to earn forgiveness and salvation on their own. By doing this they end up rejecting Christ and throwing away the forgiveness he offers.

2, Our relationship with God’s word. One of the first things we teach our children in Catechism class is the difference between the natural knowledge of God (what we learn from the world around us) and the revealed knowledge of God (what can only be learned in the Bible). There seem to be a lot of Christians who think, “I can worship God my own way, out in nature. I can remember that God is my creator.” But that doesn’t do anything for the benefit of his soul on account of his sins. We must focus our attention on Jesus and his sacrifice, remembering that the very center of the gospel is the cross of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:17). We need to connect with the gospel through the sermon that’s preached and the sacrament that we take for the good of our souls.

Another point about listening to sermons and attending Bible classes: When we dig more deeply into God’s word and are led down Scripture’s paths by a minister who is trained in the doctrines of the Bible, we will become familiar with even the most difficult parts of the Bible. They will be as comfortable for us to be in as our own kitchens and living rooms. And the more we study and listen to solid Christian preaching, the more of the Bible’s passages, parables and stories will be opened for us—sixty each year (counting holidays and special services), the whole New Testament in five or ten years, and most of the more important parts of the Old Testament. That’s just preaching. If we attend Bible classes, we might find that in a lifetime we can study through every single page, paragraph and period of the Word of God. For those who have been reading this devotion since we started in 1999, there are only 11 books of the Bible that I haven’t yet touched. God willing, we’ll finish them and revisit quite a few more.

3, Our relationship with the other believers who are there. Even in a pandemic, watching worship from one’s own church is important. Most of us have discovered how important it is for us to see that worship is happening, even if a virus keeps some understandably distant. The technology that’s available is a blessing from God to permit us to worship live even at home in our pajamas, and many people I know want to still dress up even at home when the service live streams at 9:30 on Sunday morning.

It’s equally important to be in worship with our brothers and sisters in the faith. We confess our faith together, confess our sins together, and hear the forgiveness proclaimed to us all, together. We get reassurance and we “build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) this way. And we build each other up even more when we pray together (Jude 20). This is how we learn how we are doing, who is suffering, who is rejoicing, who is blessed with new life in their lives, and who is grieving a loss. In this way, we can fulfill Paul’s plea: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15).

4, Our relationship with those who can’t be there. This, too, involves prayer. Some of our dear friends are absent because they are hurt, ill, or injured. We want to pray for them. In other cases, we pray that they will hear the gospel. Or we might need to “bless those who persecute us; bless and not curse” (Romans 12:14). And we also “share with God’s people who are in need” (Romans 12:13). This means bringing our offerings to support the work of the ministry. A church might have eight hundred members on its books, but if only a hundred of them are really supporting the ministry, what will they be able to accomplish for God’s service? If the other seven hundred gave only a single dollar each week, think of what that $36,400 would do annually for their budget. But we don’t give our contributions to make the budget. We give to glorify God and to thank him for his many gifts to us. We give so that the gospel can go out into the world through our mission work, and so that new pastors, ministers and teachers can be trained to serve the next generation, so that the work of the gospel will not end in our nation because we lost interest.

The women of Philippi were gathered to worship. Their act reminds us of the importance of prayer when no other worship is available. There was no one there to preach a sermon or to pronounce the forgiveness of sins, or even speak a benediction (“the Lord bless you and keep you,” etc.). Perhaps they shared passages they loved from the Psalms or the Prophets. Maybe they sang a little. But they could pray, and they did pray. Prayer is an act of worship just as much as receiving the sacrament or listening to the Scripture lessons. When we pray together, we join our voices in our thanks and in our requests, especially in the perfect outline Jesus gave in the Lord’s Prayer.

Let us avoid “the habit of being idle” (1 Timothy 5:13) and especially the habit of giving up on meeting together (Hebrews 10:25). Let us join together for “prayer and thanksgiving” (Nehemiah 11:17; Philippians 4:6), to sing God’s praises, to listen to the word of God as it is expertly read and faithfully preached, to pray for one another, and be blessed together. And God will bless us indeed.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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