I Went to Church Yesterday

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

I did not blog last week because I attended my first cousin's funeral in Hempstead, New York. On top of that, my computer broke and was not fixed until later in the week. Parenthetically, a frightening thought overwhelmed me: I realized to what extent my sanctification was tied to my functioning laptop! For several days, I was a fish out of water breaking all God's commandments against the sin of worrying, scarcely able to concentrate on matters of more importance, on such concerns that have enduring and eternal consequences! O wretched man that I am!!

At the time that all the saints go marching into the sanctuary, I was at LaGuardia Airport boarding my flight to return home to Stone Mountain. I felt strange and out of place and could not stop wondering what and how my brothers and sisters at All Saints Redeemer Church were doing; at what junction of the service were they; did they warmly greet the supplying preacher?; and so on. More worries, more sin! Yet, the truth was, I would rather occupy the last pew of my church than be at the airport on the Lord's Day. I would rather be a doorkeeper there than be at a hub of frantic busyness on such a day. I truly missed my family; I truly missed worshiping our Triune God with them in the sanctuary. I also did hate leaving my huge family back in New York but the family that was heaviest on my mind was my covenant family in Georgia.

My family on my father’s side is quite large and most of my cousins and their children and grandchildren are unsaved. While I did enjoy the brief time that I spent with them, notwithstanding the sad circumstances, I grieved over the condition of their souls and sought to use all opportunities to witness to Jesus, in word and in deed. But then I also began to reflect on the fact that my church family will be with me for a much longer time – even for eternity – than my family in New York. It was then I realized that those bought by the blood of Christ are bound in a much more intimate union, indeed, into an eternal community, than those family members according to natural generation. It is true that Blood is thicker and more long-lasting than blood. It was then that I also ruminated on the fact that the family is a wonderful gift from God granted in the context of his creation mandate to be a community – remember how he lamented that it was not good for man to be alone, Gen 2:18; recall how he created man and woman in his own image and blessed them and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, that is to populate the earth, his stage of redemption, with offspring also made in his image, 1:27-28. I next cogitated on the gospel truth that those the Lord saves by his grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, he also adopts as his sons and daughters into his family through the work of his Holy Spirit, Rom 8:14-15, who also places them in the local church, the body of Christ, 1 Cor 12:13.

The church then is a covenant family comprising several covenant families. Though having many members, it has only one head, Jesus Christ, from whom it receives its life and livelihood, Eph 4:15 -16, and into whose image its members are being transformed from one degree of glory to another, 2 Cor 3:18. The church is the new covenant community of God, participating in his covenant of grace, enjoying his spiritual blessings, Eph 1:3, as well as material blessings, Mt 6:33-34. It is assured of Christ's sustaining, sanctifying presence in its midst, and above all, it is confident that it will bask in his glory forever and ever. In anticipation of and in preparation for this glorious redemption, the church reflects a commitment to holiness, a love for God and neighbor, a passion for heavenly matters, and a sanctified dissatisfaction with the way things are. My earthly family does not share in these blessings. My earthly family is not filled with this hope. They do not and cannot have this worldview until and unless they have been born again, born from above, into a new family, the family of God. Then and only then will we be family in the truest and most profound sense of the word.

So what did I do at church yesterday? I reminded our congregation that the task of the church is to teach families to become hallmarks of holiness, to carry out the creation mandate of filling the earth with holy seed, to leave legacies of righteousness and holiness, to live in such a countercultural way that they show themselves to be vessels of God's saving mercies in Christ and instruments of his blessing to others. In return, each family's responsibilities include the commitment to disciple its children and to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord in such a way that members of each local household become members of God's unique, peculiar household. In other words, to ensure that there is a one to one ratio between the earthly family and the heavenly family.

What will eventually become of my cousins and their children and their children's children? I don't know but what I do know is that dum spiro, spero, while I breathe, I hope .. and encourage, exhort, reason, plead with and use all other means available in order for them to become my family in the Spirit. This is partly what I taught in church yesterday.