I Don’t Have to Go to Church – Lies of the Enemy #16– Purity 1028

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a view of the Hudson River under blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while on one of my many local exploration adventures that I set out in, in the summer of 2020. This one is from the fishing pier that I believe is located at the end of Ferry Road in the Newton Hook tidal wetlands area off of State Route 9J south of Stuyvesant. I'm a little vague on the directions because I discovered it after hiking through the forest trails that began over on, I believe, Ice House Road where a small park is located. I have an embarrassing confession to make in regards to this trip, and it's not the fact that I didn't quite know where I was going, uh, and stumbled upon this awesome view of the river, um, after emerging from a hike trail to an unknown road. I was really impressed with this quaint area, and in the summer of 2020, I had several ideas in my head that I was thinking, uh, that were from God but turned out to be wishful thinking. At the time, uh, there was talk, uh, of my local church possibly doing a church plant in the Reformed Church in Stuyvesant. One of my pastors actually stepped in to perform a service there one Sunday, and there was speculation that he would plant a church there. I was also in the possession of a new house, and I was officially 8 months single after my divorce had finalized, and I had ideas about marrying one of the young women who attended my local church, someone who was— who I was fond of, but who who I had yet to even mention anything about dating, mind you. So on that day in August, thinking about a possible church plant just down the road from where I live and thinking of the possibility of having a Christian wife, my imagination had me put 1 and 1 together to get 8. I know that math doesn't work, but it is indicative of the quantum leap of faith and assumptions my prophetic, quote-unquote, prophetic vision or imagination was making. In my mind, uh, it was, uh, it was all falling into place. Um, I would marry this young woman, and together we would join the pastor in this new church plant and live happily ever after, living at my place down by the river and serving the Lord at the nearby church in Stuyvesant. It all made sense. I could see where the Lord was leading me, and I liked it. So, so pie in the sky were my thoughts that on that day, on the day I discovered this fishing pier, I thought I had stumbled upon the place I would propose to my future wife. I could see it all so clearly and couldn't wait for things to fall into place. But as Smokey Robinson sang, it was just my imagination running away with me. The church plant in Stuyvesant never happened. The pastor in question started a commercial roofing business and moved out of the Stuyvesant area. As for the young woman, I respectfully kept my distance and admiration a secret. Until I foolishly messenger— messaged her on Valentine's Day of 2021 to get an idea if there was any possibility for a relationship that was more than friendship, because I just had to know, and was politely informed that I was barking up the wrong tree. My prophetic vision was off, but the Lord was with me and was guiding me to my destiny all the same. That same year, I began a community freedom ministry at my local church and decided to podcast the lessons to reach those who were too distant or fearful of COVID-19 to attend, to come to a local church meeting. And it was through that ministry and podcast that the Lord introduced me to Tammy Lynn Seguin, or Seguin. Oh boy. And by, by year's end, we were engaged and married on January 1st, 2022. And it is real, and it's a really good thing the Lord came through because not only did I find the Christian wife and soulmate I had been praying for, but I was also delivered from the awkward situation of from going to a church with someone I had expressed romantic interest in and been rebuffed. Because of the distance between us, Tammy Lynn and I decided where we would worship, and because of that awkward situation and other considerations, I decided to leave my local church for hers and was publicly blessed and released from my local church in December of 2021. So in this story, and through my checkered religious past of, of, of two other liturgical denominational churches, I can understand how difficult it can be when there are awkward situations or problems at a local church, and how it could cause some, like me in my 5-year journey into Buddhism, to abandon church altogether. And that brings us to our current series, which is an examination of some of the common lies, sometimes sneakily whispered into our minds as first-person statements, that the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith, lose our peace, cause division, or influence us to not follow the Lord in the way we live our lives. So today's big lie is—lie number 16—I don't have to go to church. Wow, that was a little— that's, that's how you say that, I think. Uh, I don't have to go to church. Uh, in my experience, this lie was planted in my youth when I learned about God's omnipresence. I was paying enough attention, uh, in church one day to understand that God is everywhere and immediately thought that if God is everywhere, that means I can worship, worship him anywhere. And rather than rejoicing that I could have a close personal relationship with the Lord that went beyond the Sunday service, I thought, perhaps with demonic encouragement, "I don't have to go to church!" Of course, I had no intention of worshiping the Lord somewhere else on my own. I just thought that I could use the priest's words against him and be free of the forced routine of my liturgical worship services. I wasn't abused at this church. I was only expected to sit quietly, behave myself, and conform to the ritualized response— responses of the service. Um, but I didn't want to and could imagine that God would be fine with me staying home watching TV, playing with my toys, or resting. It was a childish rebellion born of ignorance and selfishness, but unfortunately this attitude can and does extend to many people who would identify themselves as Christians or spiritual who have— who have decided to forsake any assembly of corporate worship. 57% of Americans either never or seldom attend church or synagogue, as opposed to the 20% of Americans that attend every week. And that's from Statista— I don't know, statista.com. Anyway, there's a link if you want to see it, but I think they're like trying to sell a statistical service, but I'll take their one thing, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, so us regular church churchgoing folks are the minority. Most people have decided that church attendance is not required as part of their faith, and technically they are correct. They don't have to go to church to be a Christian. We can conceive of all kinds of scenarios and excuses where church attendance is either difficult or impossible, and thus, uh, we will not declare that a Christian must attend church regularly. But the intention of this blog and current series is to encourage Christians to live out their faith as— uh, yeah, I gotta correct everything I write here. Let's see. And if you've ever read the blog, you know it's not everything. Anyway, they have to live out their faith as authentically, or we'll even try to encourage it anyway. Their faith as authentically as possible. And follow— following by— and the following Bible verses indicate that church membership, attendance, and service should be something a Christian should want to be a part of. I'm sharing a link to OpenBibleInfo's 100 Verses About Church for those who want to see some scripture on the matter, but we'll share a few to make the point that we might want to enter into a local assembly of the saints. I think the go-to verse, um, on this subject has to be Hebrews 10:24-25, where the Apostle Paul writes, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Even Paul had to acknowledge that some people blew off church in his day, but he encourages us encourages us to not neglect meeting together because the corporate gathering can motivate us to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Another go-to verse for church is Matthew 18:20, where Jesus said, 'For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.' Jesus indicates that there is something about our gathering together that is blessed by God. Jesus tells us that when we gather together, he is in our midst. He blesses us with his presence. Corporate worship comes from our faith's beginnings, as God's called the nation of Israel to be his people and to sacrifice and worship him with songs. David sung about what a joyful experience, quote unquote, church could be in Psalm 122:1. He, he wrote, "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'" And I can understand that may not be everyone's church experience, and I don't mean to condemn anyone but merely want to encourage Christians that the church is the place where we can grow and meet our purpose in Christ. My skeptical faith became strong faith through my worshiping and serving in a local church. Through my former local church, I learned more about God, myself, and how to actually live a Christian life. And while sometimes the ironing, sharpening, ironing could be frustrating and painful, I know that the growth I have experienced in my faith could have never happened without my church experiences and the growth opportunities that came from being a part of a local church. So I encourage you to not stand in your liberty to forsake the assembly of the local church and to instead seek out and find a body of Bible believers where you can worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, where you can increase your capacity to love your neighbor as yourself, and where you can increase your faith and discover your purpose in Christ. I know Satan loves it when we isolate and resist— we isolate. So resist the devil by choosing to serve and worship at a local church. I know my examination of this lie, uh, was mediocre, and thus I am sharing links to several articles on the blog today for biblical reasons to go to church from BibleReasons.com, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Christianity.com, and Crosswalk.com. Um, there's like 4, 4 reasons to go to church, 10 reasons, 12 reasons, you know, why church is going important even when you don't want to go to church. They're all presented on the blog today. So, and we also share Frank Turek's website, crossexamine.org. He's— it's apologetic and it's great for encouraging our faith to make sure we understand what we believe and why we believe it. Anyway, that moves us along to the first, uh, our Bible verse of the— of the day, and that's brought to us from our resource, the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Isaiah 41:10, and the word of God says, don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Today's verse confirms that the Lord is with those who have faith in him. We are not left alone on this silent earth. This verse reflects the truth of God's presence in his people's lives that really has come to bear with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. For those who have put their faith in Jesus. When we surrender our lives to do his will rather than our own and commune with him regularly through Bible study, prayer, and worship, maybe in a church setting, we learn of the experiential reality of the Lord's presence in our lives. He encourages us, he strengthens us, he helps us, and if we faithfully follow him, he leads us to victory and in victory. When we put our faith in Christ, we have won. We are accepted into God's kingdom. Nothing can separate us from his love, and nothing can harm us in the ultimate sense. We are victorious in Christ for eternal life. But when we repent and decide to live as Christians, we also get to experience the victories that the Lord prepares for us here on earth. And all we have to do to to experience them is to choose to go his way rather than our own. As always, I encourage— I always invite, um, all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christians, theologians, and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and I believe this is the end. Well, almost, as we'll be sharing from Appendix Number 4 from that book, um, basically on 1 John 2:2. And we're breaking that, that, that little article up, uh, into two. So you'll get the first part of it today and the second part of it tomorrow. So if you want to see what A.W. Pink has to say about 1 John 2:2, uh, just go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. Uh, also at the end of today's blog post, you'll see encouragements to, um, join our discipleship classes that are on the podcast and YouTube channel for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all based on the work of Dr. Neil Anderson of Freedom in Christ Ministries, and they're based on the word of God. I taught these lessons back in 2021, like I talked about in today's— in today's message. I did podcast them, and here they are. So if you'd like to hear me teach on these subjects, just check out the playlists that are on YouTube or search for them in the way past on the audio blog or the audio podcast. And if you wanted to take a deeper dive into the material, you can contact me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com and ask me for the Word documents that I handed out with those classes, so you could do the work as you listen, or after you listen, to experience, uh, you know, who you are in Christ and your freedom in Christ. So we offer that. And of course, we always encourage Bible study, as we're— as the thing we encourage is a daily spiritual practice of prayer and Bible study every morning, and gratitude to begin your day, and to walk and talk with God throughout your day. Um, so we encourage Bible study, and the way we do that on our, uh, this little ministry is to, um, do a weekly Bible study with our good friends Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. Um, you know, I've been doing Sunday Bible studies for most of my walk as a born-again Christian. Um, back— probably started back in, I'm gonna guess, 2012, um, is when I started going to the men's Bible study at my local church, and that developed into Arthur leading it, and it sort of dwindled down to the two of us, um, basically at one point. And that's when Susanna got involved, and she said, you guys should podcast this. So we, we decided to do it, and now we just meet privately and, uh, do a Bible study like we normally would have, and we put it on our podcast and our YouTube channel. So if you want to become part of our little study Um, you can just go to, uh, the blog, the podcast, or the YouTube channel and search for Bible Study with the Sincatis, and you'll hear our topical Bible discussion each week. Um, so that's that. Uh, today's, uh, I'm uploading this prayerfully earlier than normal because, uh, my corporate body of work workers has a union meeting before we start work, so I have to, uh, head out early. Because I want to support my fellow union brothers and whatever discussion we're going to have this morning about work, even though it's on my own time. But that's it. You know, we're not to isolate. I don't necessarily have to go to this meeting, but I want to show that I'm there to support my coworkers and, and the union, basically, because, you know, they really, they really set, you know, they negotiate for us to give us a livelihood. That can support me. And, uh, you know, there's other people in my industry, telecommunications, um, or, you know, internet services or whatever, that don't make a lot of money. Um, and the reason why we make more than they do is because we're unionized. We come together and, uh, you know, get a living wage from the corporation that makes billions in profits. So we So, so I'm a union supporter, and, uh, I know that might rub people the wrong way, but that's my experience. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth anyway. Uh, so, so, you know, uh, that's that. And that just means I, I need to pray and get going. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Thank you for all that you do, uh, for us, Lord. Um, how you help us and guide us and strengthen us and encourage us in our faith. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening, uh, or reading today's blog post message. We just pray for you to come alongside them in their walk. We pray for you to bless them and to lead them in the way they should go. And Lord, we pray for the people that we're praying for this morning, that all the people are signing up for a recovery ministry. We're praying for them. We're praying for the people who are going to serve with us We're praying for, um, some people with health concerns, and we're praying for someone who's dear to us who's lost, uh, is grieving a loss of their husband. So, um, we pray for you to come alongside all of those things, those prayers that we've already made. And, uh, we, we also want you to go before us today, Lord. We need you to, uh, guide us. Uh, we just pray that you open our eyes and things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go. And, uh, Lord, we just want you to know all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, uh, here on the earth. And we need your help to know what that is because our ideas can get a little twisted and might be, might be good in our own heart but isn't really your will. And so we need you to lead us to your purposes. Um, in Jesus' name, um, we, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, Lord. And we pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.