Don’t Be Left Out
Luke 3 & 4 is the launch of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
He was thirty years old (Luke 3:23).
He was baptized in water by John, affirmed by the Father, and filled with the Spirit (Luke 3:21-22).
He was full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit into the wilderness for fasting and prayer, where He was tempted by Satan (Luke 4:1-13).
And for the next three years He would select disciples, do miracles, raise the dead, preach the Gospel, teach the masses, die on the cross for our sins, be raised from the dead by the power of God and seated back at the right hand of the Father.
But before all that, from childhood to 30 years of age, He was a faithful synagogue attender and participant at the synagogue nearest His house in Nazareth.
When He returned home from the inauguration of His ministry at the Jordan River, Luke records that “as was His custom He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath” (Luke 4:16).
As was His custom!
Remember, this is the Lord of the universe!
The Creator of heavens and the earth.
And His custom, His practice, for the first 30 years of His life, was to be in the synagogue on the Sabbath. And for the following three years He taught at all the synagogues in the 200 plus towns and villages around Galilee.
Why would He make that such a priority of His life?
Because something mystical, something supernatural, something eternal happens when God’s people are gathered in His Name… that only happens in that setting.
Jesus is uniquely present.
Testimony gives hope.
Faith gets stirred and added to faith.
Love gets tested and has to be more than a sentiment.
Worship coalesces, gets amplified, and rises as a sweet aroma before the Father… the fragrance of which falls on all who participate.
Mutual service encourages others to become servants.
Faith comes by the hearing of the preached Word.
Endurance gets built as we watch each other walk through valleys and scale mountains.
Lives get refined by iron sharpening iron.
Our hearts are changed by faithful corporate practices designed to restore our first love for God.
One generation speaks to the next about their history of God’s faithfulness.
Maturity happens.
Angels stand around the gathered body of Christ and marvel at our redeemed lives joined as one.
It is the only place where the 50-some commands of the New Testament get worked out re: how we live out our salvation with “one another.”
It is no wonder that the writer of Hebrews says, “Do not neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25).
We need each other.
There is no such thing as an isolated Christian life.
There is no such thing as church online.
Researchers have discovered that over the last 20 years church attendance of the “committed core” has dropped from 4 Sundays out of 4, to 1 Sunday out of 6.
It’s epidemic.
It is Satan’s strategy to destroy the Church.
There is all kinds of speculation about the reasons behind the trend…
- the church is behind the times
- the church is old wine skins
- services are too long
- the minister is boring
- the music is too_________
- the people are hypocrites
- I’ve been hurt there one too many times
It’s all probably true.
But it changes nothing.
Good, bad and ugly, it is still Christ’s body.
It is still what He died on the cross to redeem.
It is what He said He would build and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
It is what He is coming back for.
It needs to be where you regularly find yourself and your family if you want to be part of what God is doing in the earth.
It was His custom.
It should be yours.