Bethany Over Bank of America

Valuing the Covenant Community of Faith on the Lord's Day

Good Morning!

The first chapter of the Westminster Directory of Public Worship has within it two ideas that we will take up one at a time: The Assembling of the Congregation and Behavior in the Public Worship of God. Both important parts of what we do on the Lord’s Day (and at other times in our lives). While these will be connected in the quotations I’ll share, we will be sure to give each their due. It is important to remember at the start that the very word Church has as its definition, Gathering Together. The Greek word Ekklesia, where we get our translation of Ecclesiastical, or in English, Church, means those who assemble together for the purposes either of religious worship or to hear speeches from political leaders. We shade away of course from the latter for sure in this case, but we do need to see that there is a common bond. Each refers to the unity of the body. The first speaking of those united together in Christ, the second of those bound to a common place, a polis, or city. It is why when we talk about coming to Church we mean more than just attendance in a building. Just as we speak about Americans, we also talk about Christians.

To say we are assembling together as the church is a statement about the way we care about one another. It’s an act of loving your neighbor as yourself. Seeing worship as many voices joining forces as one to praise the name of God Almighty in His grace and love. To say Bethany ARP Church is to reference history, tradition, hope, dreams, a common confession of faith, and all numbers of ideas that look back and forward to the promises we each have in our Savior. 1 Corinthians 12 is a popular place to go to explain this more clearly. Paul there uses the individual parts of the body to describe that an arm is useless without a shoulder connecting it to the heart, lungs, and brain. The same is true of the Church and the gathering she does on the Sabbath morning. We are to think of ourselves as incomplete when men and women, who are otherwise not providentially hindered, miss out on the means of grace that God designed that we would benefit from together.

Here is a quote from the first chapter to get us started:

WHEN the congregation is to meet for publick worship, the people (having before prepared their hearts thereunto) ought all to come and join therein; not absenting themselves from the publick ordinance through negligence, or upon pretence of private meetings.

One of the things we will touch on when we get to the Directory On Church Government that this paragraph assumes is how the people God know when they are to meet for public worship. For our purposes today it is understood that the Elders, or the Session, however you would like to style them, are granted not only that responsibility, but the privilege to do so. The old adage was, and many of you grew up in families where this was true, that if the elders open the doors our family will be there. As Presbyterians we understand that the dates and times of worship are under the authority of those primarily given to shepherd your souls. Sometimes we can lay on the pastor those duties that belong to the elder, and this is one such example. While ordinarily the minister would be the one leading morning and evening exercises, Wednesday Prayer Meeting, and other occasional services, it is to be comprehended by all that at the end of the day the Session must needs ring the bell for worship.

Another thing to quickly take note of in the very title public worship is that word public. Our coming into the house of the Lord, parking by the road, leaving our house, driving down our street and being seen by others out mowing their laws, running around, and prepping for tailgaiting, etc... all the while you and your family in your Sunday best pass by on your way to church are making a public statement about your faith in Jesus Christ, what you believe about the First Commandment, the Second Commandment, and on down the line. While our Lord teaches us not to make a display of our holiness in order to peacock around others there is a sense in which it is important that your neighbor see your commitment to your God. To let them know that there is someone who matters more, and who you’d rather be with on the first day of the week than Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Judge, or whomever. Your heart belongs to Jesus, and His covenant family is the assembly you choose to be at, Bethany over Bank of America.

Paul connects this obedient love of God to the redemption we have in Christ and the way it moves our heart and soul to value it over everything else. To prove his point he says this to the Hebrews in Chapter 10:19-25:

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

In closing, we see in this first section that Jesus places great emphasis in His word on the vital importance of our lifting up one another in faith. To do so with boldness and with a new and living way with full assurance of faith in order that we might consider one another, not our own felt needs, but what is best for one another, exhorting one another, and through this corporate show of affection to then stir up love and good works in the service of Christ and His Bride. Our attendance at worship is a sign of our enjoyment in the gospel and our love for our church family.

Last word:

https://practicalchristianity.ng/the-blessing-and-duty-of-corporate-worship/

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church