Sometimes, I wake up on Sunday morning totally discouraged and disheartened. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to go to church. I just want to pull the covers over my head and sleep the day away. Sure, this happens other days of the week, but it can be especially bad on Sundays.
You know what remedies this Sunday morning gloom? Going to church. This one thing that I wake up not wanting to do is the very thing that brings life to my soul. So many weeks, I walk into church discouraged and on the verge of tears, but by the time the service is done, my heart is rejoicing again. The music worship, the preaching from God’s word, praying together, and the fellowship of believers revives my soul and lifts my spirit.
I think this is God’s design for these corporate gatherings. I think this is the way that it was meant to be. Paul Tripp, in New Morning Mercies, says: “God ordained for us to gather for worship because he knows us and the weaknesses of our fickle, grumbling, and easily distracted hearts…So in grace he calls us to gather and consider glory once again, to be excited once again, and to be rescued once again.” David Matthis calls corporate gatherings for fellowship & worship a “means of grace” by which we come to know and delight more in Jesus as we are built up and encouraged.
We are the body of Christ. But why are we a body together? Ephesians 4 says that God gave us the body and equipped us with different gifts “for building up the body of Christ” (verse 12), so that as we speak the truth in love to one another we will “[grow] up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (verse 15). God gave us the body to help with our spiritual growth, our sanctification.
The author of Hebrews says: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:13). So as we gather together we are to exhort and warn one another to keep one another from falling into sin and growing a hard heart. But how are we to do this for one another if we don’t gather?
That’s why the author of Hebrews continues, “And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, 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” (Heb 10:24-25). We must meet together in the corporate gathering in order to fulfill our role as the body of Christ to stir one another up to greater sanctification.
Sometimes, this means that my words will be an encouragement to others. Sometimes this means that the words of others will be an encouragement to me. But often, it ends up being just the act of showing up at church – of seeing my brothers and sisters in Christ, hearing the truth of God’s word proclaimed through preaching, prayer, and singing – that brings life to my soul. The greatest remedy for my heavy heart is to gather corporately with the body of Christ, being fed and restored through preaching, praying, singing, and fellowship. Praise the Lord for the body of Christ and the corporate gatherings he has ordained.
To close this post, here’s a brief poem I wrote on the topic.
Enter with a heavy heart
But don’t refuse to go
For what reviving you will find
You surely may not know.
My heart felt cold and gray
When into church I walked
But how the saints brought light
As we worshipped, prayed, and talked.
Through the morning service
I felt my burdens roll away
I left more filled with joy
Than I had begun that day.
Go and join the fellowship
Hear the preaching of the word
For this is a means of grace
By which you are restored.
Beautiful!!!