I Went to Church Yesterday

The first of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. Monday through Saturday is a long time to be away from the members of the body of Christ. I sorely wanted to see my brothers and sisters again. Particularly, I wanted to see our ailing sister who has been recently diagnosed with a serious malignancy and for whom we have been praying intensely. I wanted to see her face, to know how she passed the last week, to encourage her and her family members by affirming to them what they already know – our faithful Triune God is with them; that in Christ Jesus our Lord we have a great High Priest who is more than able to sympathize with our weaknesses, temptations and illnesses and that because of him, we are to hold firmly to the faith we profess, Heb 4:14-15.
I wanted to be with the young persons, some of whose parents are faithfully catechizing them with a view that, upon successful examination, they would be received into our church as communicant members.
I attended service yesterday because I wanted to meet in person the husband of one of our members who lives in another state and for whom we have been praying feverishly to return to and be reunited with his wife. Unbeknownst to him, the Lord has answered our prayers and we are rejoicing with humble thanksgiving to our merciful God who moved in the heart of this man and motivated him to come back to his wife. What an awesome God! I went to church yesterday.

However, as sound and as laudable as these motives are, they are not the major reason for my attending service yesterday. I attended service mainly because I needed to hear from heaven, to hear from God. The Scripture declares that I'm standing in covenant unity and continuity with the redeemed community of Israel whom Lord God had monergistically saved from Egyptian slavery and brought unto himself for his own glory. Then, he commanded them to stand at the foot of Mt. Sinai in order that he would speak to them from on high. There he reminded him of his Person, who he is and of his work, his redemptive work of purchasing them from captivity. Within that redemptive context and from the perspective of that introductory reminder, he gave them the plans and commands he had for their lives, the stipulations which were to govern their lives as his own treasured possession, his own holy nation that he separated from all the nations of the world, which belonged to him, but from which he was pleased to choose in an unbreakable covenant that he sovereignly instituted, a small part which he created and constituted by his word as his own people.

Like the church of the old covenant, elect Israel, the church today is a creatura verbi, a creation of the word of God. Like the church of the old covenant, today's church is the recipient of God's lavish saving mercies that he mediates through his son, Jesus Christ. So, I went to church yesterday to hear from this very God who spoke at Sinai and who now speaks to his people now assembled on Mt. Zion. To hear what? To hear the law and the gospel repeated in my heart; to hear the wonderful story of God's particular redemption of sinners through his gracious, sovereign regeneration of the Holy Spirit unto faith in Christ alone and all soli Deo gloria, to the glory of God alone; to hear this word by which we are saved, justified, sanctified and renewed; to hear this word by which we live, and move and have our being, for in like manner as it creates the church, this word also creates faith in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is this faith by which we live, 2 Cor 5:7. It is by the hearing of God's word, ex auditu, by which the church lives. I went to church yesterday to hear the word of God that I may live. I went to church yesterday.