Hebrews 10:23–25 (ESV)
“23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
In the book of Hebrews, we are given instruction to not forsake or neglect the assembling of believers. We are encouraged to not act like others but to meet together. I’m sure we all know somebody who claims to be a Christian and yet never willingly sets foot in the church, at least not on a regular basis. The instruction from the author of Hebrews here is that we should stir one another up to love and good works while meeting together. This does not seem to be an optional thing.
There are many benefits to the church gathering together on Sunday mornings and throughout the week and it’s important that we don’t lose sight of them. We are dealing with such a time now that we physically cannot meet in the church building due to sickness, government regulations, and general concern for our church family. With this comes a great struggle that I have witnessed so many churches face today.
The first struggle for me personally and with many others is how to be obedient to this instruction in scripture in light of everything going on around us. We, as a church, were hesitant to cancel Sunday morning services because of this but the more I thought and prayed about it the clearer it became that we would have to halt the assembling of believers physically for the love and concern of one another. Many within our congregation are at great risk from COVID-19 even if there are yet to be any cases in our area.
The struggle didn’t end with choosing to cancel services though because all around our country, even though we couldn’t gather physically, churches still wanted to hold a service. So, thousands of Pastors and ministry leaders set out to do their best at livestreaming and recording messages and for most of us we had no idea what we were doing. Personally, I recorded my sermon from my office and the first recording cut out halfway through. I had to splice together 3 messages in order to have a full sermon video and it was not nearly as cohesive as I had hoped. After I was done editing, I had to find a way to post my sermon online and had to wait over 7 hours for my sermon to upload because our internet connection in this small town is not exactly ideal. Doing this ahead of time allowed me to sit at home with Deborah and the kids on Sunday morning and watch another church livestream their service which indeed was a blessing. But on Sunday I witnessed one church after another struggle with this new format. Some churches livestream simply didn’t work, another Pastor had recorded his message and had forgotten about how bad the internet connection in the area was so his message was unable to be posted in the morning, and the sermon I was able to listen to was most definitely one in which God was glorified it was more than clear that livestream is not ideal. To add to it all, my kids didn’t quite understand this new form of church and without the environmental change of going to church they weren’t exactly cooperative.
This past Sunday certainly had its benefits though. My mother-in-law had shared with me about how they had watched not just one message but at least 3 and my sister-in-law said she watched so many services on Sunday that my message would have to wait for another day. Praise the Lord that being stuck at home for many meant that they not only heard one man share the gospel but many. Furthermore, these messages were shared on Facebook and those who wouldn’t normally go out to church were given the opportunity to hear the gospel in their homes, and many of them took advantage of this.
Yet still this is not how it is meant to be. We most certainly need to be doing all that we can to encourage one another in this time, listening to sermons, sharing worship music, and diving into God’s word with our families. But the author of Hebrews’ instruction is for us to not neglect the church meeting physically and the many flaws that we faced this past week are in many ways a blessing. It is not enough to sit at home and listen to sermons. It is not enough to study God’s word alone. We are called to gather together and this time away from the church should only increase our desire to be together with the church again.
While we cannot meet together do what you can to encourage one another. Share sermons and messages that you find biblical and encouraging, pray for your church family in the midst of this, and reach out to one another. It takes only a few minutes to call someone and check in on them, see if you can help them in any way, and pray for/with them. These times are most certainly strange and difficult but let it only fuel you desire to be with and around those who love the God who loves you.
- Pastor Kyle Horton