BY JACK WARD
If I decided to join the U.S. Army and depending on whether or not I could pass the physical, I figured it should only take me about one week of training, and I would be ready. We all know better than that, don’t we? One week of training would never prepare anyone for going to war, not even Superman.
What makes us think a minimal amount of church attendance will get the job done in the Lord’s army, fighting against Satan and the world of evil? It should be obvious that it will take a lot more training than once-a-month church attendance or even once-a-week!
A woman approached the minister after the sermon and thanked him for his message.
“I found it so helpful,” she said.
The minister replied, “I hope it will not prove as helpful as the last sermon you heard me preach.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked the astonished woman.
“Well,” said the minister, “that sermon lasted you three months.”
Church attendance among those who claim to know Christ is, just to put it honestly, “shameful.” The average church has only 20% of its members present Sunday morning and only 4% present for Sunday night service or mid-week services.
Growing up as a young Christian man I loved going to church. I attended Sunday School, Sunday morning and Sunday Evening services faithfully. The most miserable times in my Christian life were the five years I only attended Sunday morning worship and, even then, only a couple of times each month. At first I felt guilty about missing church, then later on, I rationalized that God didn’t expect me to be at every service, and then later, I felt that I was too busy and tired to go to church! Then finally I felt like those people at church don’t care about me anyway.
Personal Bible reading, personal praying and sharing of my faith also had just about disappeared from my life.
One day I saw my pastor at the post office. He didn’t say anything particularly about church only that He hoped to see me Sunday. I thought, “Have I gotten this far from the Lord that the pastor has to say he hoped to see me at church?” I decided then and there that even though I may fail God everywhere else in my life there is one thing that I will not fail Him in and that is faithfulness to His church.
I can’t tell you the many ways that God has blessed me since that day. Now as a pastor I can tell you the disappointment in those who don’t come to all the services at our church. I don’t hurt for me. I have learned to be faithful to preach and teach the word and leave the results up to God. But I do hurt for the unfaithful and the fellowship they are missing, the blessing of God that they are missing, the word of God that they aren’t hearing, the training that they are not getting. And I also hurt because I know that those Christians who are not faithful to attend church won’t be faithful in reading the Bible, spending time with the Lord in prayer or in sharing their faith with others.
It’s a tough world out there. We need the Lord Jesus Christ. He blesses us when we try to please Him. We need each other’s encouragement, support and love. We need the word of God to guide us, to train us so that we will be fully prepared soldiers ready for anything this world might throw at us.
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:3-4: “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” Are you a good and faithful soldier for the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you getting enough training?
Hear Pastor Jack’s sermons and read sermon outlines and much more at www.tomahawkmbc.com.