Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Thank you Father for bringing us together here today. Thank you for your great lover of Him today. And may we go from this place blessed because we were here and we heard your word and because we sang your praises and we thought of our precious savior, the Lord Jesus.
Thank you that we can meet. Thank you that we have a safe place in this province where we are able to meet it. It's a real miracle, Lord. And we acknowledge that you have given us this blessing in your mercy and in your grace, that you have provided freedom in our province where we can come and we can meet and gather like this.
I think Lord of most of the world is shut down. Most of the world is going through huge growth and spikes in this coronavirus. And we pray for our brothers and sisters in other places where they can't meet or where they're restricted. And we pray for them.
We pray that you would keep them safe. We pray that they would be able to meet somehow to encourage one another. And we do pray for here that our safety would continue and that you would keep us through this cold and flusies and it's coming up, that you would keep us healthy. Each person in the body here and each one who's online.
We just thank you for your wonderful mercy to us. Thank you that we can gather as a church. And we thank you for all these things in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. The title from my message this morning is, I don't usually just pick a topic and just do it, but I guess I do sometimes, but why I need church.
I've really been thinking about this. And this has been heavy on my mind and it goes back to those days of isolation, sitting at my kitchen table doing breaking of bread with just the two of us singing there and everybody else has a face on the screen. And then that wonderful day came when we could actually come and meet in the building and see each other again. And through all of this, I have to say that concerns have come and built and got me thinking along these lines and got me thinking and appreciating the fact that I have a local church, that I have a place where I can come where I can meet with my brothers and sisters in Christ and be encouraged and strengthened and worship the Lord.
A couple of things that come to mind is we have, since March, when we had to close down, there's a lot of people that we said were MIA, missing an action, we haven't heard from since March, we haven't seen them, we haven't heard much from them at all. And I thought I can't say that they're missing an action because they may not be an action, maybe they're not out of action, they're missing the action, they're MTA's, they're missing a lot of what will strengthen the believer. And then there are churches that are still closed, they haven't opened up since March. What's happening to those bodies, what's happening to the folks?
It's a heavy concern. And all of this makes me thankful that I have church, that I'm part of a church, that you are part of my fellowship, my church. I recently went to the Holy Land, Cape Breton. I think, this is, oh, there we go.
So I recently went to Cape Breton and was blessed in the sunshine of the place. But I noticed a lot of converted churches. Now, before you think, oh, that's good? No, converted, I mean converted into cafes, hostels, antique shops, craft shops, I couldn't believe it, I get into city mines.
And here's this huge Catholic church that's there, huge, probably the biggest church in town, and it's a plumbing shop. And I thought, wow. Now, some of those things, some of those churches from what they were serving before, are better off serving coffee, or good plumbing, and so on. I understand that.
So I'm not saying, oh, I'm so disappointed that the big RC church in the middle of city mines is closed now. And I'm not saying that I'm upset that the little United church that did not teach the truth of scripture in the middle of the Ganesha is now a craft shop. I'm not saying I'm upset with that. But what does it say to the community?
What it says to the community is, the church, who needs that? It's dead. So the true church is grouped in with all of these. And when they drive by and see a church that looks like one of these, especially that one in the middle, they say, there's a symbol of what the church is all about.
It's dead. To some, they say the church is just irrelevant. So stats from the US, they're easier to get than Canada. It's interesting because I try to get some stats on the Canadian churches in Canada.
And the most recent you can get is 2012. And they just kind of gave up. In the States, they're a little more up to date. But over 60 churches a week are closing in the US.
In Chicago, they did a survey going door to door. They just knocked on doors, big church. And they went to thousands of homes with a clipboard. And they said, we're going to ask you a question.
That's it. Do you go to church? Yes or no? No.
Why don't you go to church? And the top five answers were, one, it's boring. Two, church is irrelevant. Three, they're always asking for money.
Four, I'm too busy already. And five, I feel awkward when I come to church. That's pretty sad. But that's the truth.
That's the pulse of that city. And I'd say it's the pulse of probably most cities. It's the pulse of most people in the country. In Canada, our state has probably maybe probably worsening.
So less than 27% say they attend religious services. Well, that is everybody. OK, that's everybody. Less than 27% say they go to religious services.
That's half of 1988. Now I remember 1988. And I don't remember all my neighbors going to church. So less than half now are going to church, of what we're going back then.
In the US, it's 46% at the same time. So we're almost half of what's going on in the states, as far as people going to services. 24% of Canadians have no religious affiliation versus 4% in 1970. So back when I went to school, all my buddies went to Catechism class.
They went to Sunday school or they went to Hebrew school. That's the three groups that I hung around with. Now, it's like, that was a 4% didn't. Now it's 24% due.
So that's really, really low. Or 24% said they have no affiliation. And it's more dramatic in the people less than 44. In Atlanta, Canada, a little bright spot in the whole thing, attendance in 1988 was 57%.
In 2012, it's 31%. So we're still indexing higher than a lot of places, back as the highest. But people are not going to church. It's like half of what they used to.
And then COVID-19 came and has made it much worse. Because I think people have found long periods of time where they're not coming together to meet and come to church. They now have a new habit. Whatever it might be.
I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's sleeping in. I don't know if it's going shopping or golfing or gardening or whatever it might be or just not doing anything or watching TV. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure. Because what has happened with people who used to go to church and don't go to church anymore? They used to be faithful. Now they're not.
I don't know. But here's the good news. In Canada, before COVID, church attendance for evangelical churches is rebounding. It's actually growing.
The true church believers who follow Jesus Christ, it's starting to grow. In spite of the statistics, what Jesus Christ said about the church, so this will wipe out all of that stuff. I just told you, the true church, the body of Christ, those who are saved, those who are His, those who belong to Him, He said, I will build my church. Build means grow up.
Get bigger. And say I'm going to let it kind of slide and tear down. He said, I'm going to build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Thank you for saying amen. I knew there'd be somebody saying amen. So if the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, what can COVID-19 do to the church? Seriously, last night we did on ESL, Satan.
I always think of him when I think of the gates of hell. Takes the Lord Jesus to the pinnacle and says, give you all this, just bow up to me. Give me a break. I mean, the fact that he can take him up, show him all that stuff, that's great.
I mean, that's great power. But he does not have enough power to disable the church. The gates of hell will never prevail against the church. We can be thankful for that.
Aren't you glad you're part of this in spite of all those grim statistics of, and I say the church, that's the church. Like, OK, so that's the church is. So what is the church supposed to look like in this? Well, they call it a postmodern era that we live in.
Is it still relevant? So I find to answer some of the questions that we look at. It's great. Somebody brought up the question at Ben Study a couple of weeks ago.
So what is it? Huh, OK, so what do we have to do to find that out? Let's go back to the beginning. So is the church relevant?
Who needs church? Do I need church? Let's go back to the beginning. Acts chapter 1.
If you can, if you have your Bible there, Acts chapter 1, I will attempt to get it up on the screen. I don't want to supposed to point that. What am I supposed to point that? Anything.
Yeah, well, I'm pointing and I'm clicking. I got a green dot. Ah, no. Can you do it, Vance?
The next slide, please. So who needs church? It's a good question. And it's been, it's not a new one.
And this question has been asked right from the beginning of the church. So let's read in Acts chapter 1. I want to read 12 to 15. Then they return to Jerusalem from the Mount called all of it.
This is the disciples, which is near Jerusalem on the Sabbath day journey. And when they had entered, they went into an upper room where they were saying, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James, the son of office, Simon, the zealot, and Judas, the son of James. That's not Judas Iscariot. They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of disciples all together. The number of names was about 120. So this is, and I won't, just for the sake of time, I won't continue to read through that chapter. But so here it starts off 120 people in this room.
Now let's look further in Acts chapter 2, verses 1 to 13. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly, they came from heaven, a noise like a violent rushing wind. And it filled a whole house where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributing themselves. And they rested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.
And when the sound occurred, the crowd came together and they were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, we're not all those who were speaking, Galileans. And how is it that we hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elomites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia.
Fergah and Pamphalia, Egypt, and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes. Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God. And they all continued in amazement with great perplexities saying to one another, what does this mean? Those verse 13.
But others were mocking and saying they are full of sweet wine or new wine. Now that's an amazing account of how the church began. If you could imagine, I'm up here speaking and you hear me in English. And you may, here's me in the Bbio.
And Lakeont hears me in Yoruba. And if somebody else was here and hear me in Punjabi, and she'd be here with me in Mandarin. Can you imagine if that were to happen? What an amazing thing that would be.
And so this happens, but there's a group of negative Nellies that are there. And they look over and they say, this isn't a miracle. These guys are just full of wine. They're drunk in the middle of the afternoon.
It's the first reaction. Who needs this? Who needs the church? Like what are these guys doing?
Here's the first reaction you read. It's a negative one. So fast forward to chapter nine. And we read this in chapter nine versus one and two.
It says now Saul, this is Saul Tarsus, was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. And he went to the high priest and he asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus. So that he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. I find it interesting that the church was first called the Way.
It's a pretty cool name. They weren't called First Baptist Church or North Bible Chapel or Calvin Presbyterian or any of that stuff. It was just called the Way. Jesus, the Way, the truth, the life.
And I think that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. This is the side note. So here's Saul representing the religious leaders. And he's saying, like, who needs this trouble?
Let's get rid of this church thing. It's bad news. We don't need it. Let's eliminate it.
Let's get rid of it. Let's get some letters together. Let's put them in prison. Let's kill them if we have to, which they did.
And then let's go ahead a little further. In Acts chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, it says, and anything you see underlined, I've done that. It's not that way in the Bible. Now, both that time Herod laid hands on some who belong to the church in order to mistreat them.
And he had James, the brother of John, put to death with a sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter as well, or also. Now, it was during the days of 111 bread. So here's Herod now.
So Herod, being the political leader, says, who needs the church? Let's lock them up. Let's put them away. Let's kill them.
Let's chop off their heads if we have to. So now you've got the political leaders saying, who needs it? The Jewish religious leaders reacting to the church by ostracism. If you joined the church and you were a Jew, you were put out of the family.
You were put out of all things social. You were put out of the synagogue. The Roman political world said, OK, we'll get rid of this. They'll crucify people.
They'll be head them. They'll do whatever they have to do to get rid of people from the church. And the Greek philosophical world responded just with arrogance and indifference. They called Paul later.
They called him a babbler. Just mocked him. This is the beginning. This is the way it started.
So let's look now at our present day. So I already read the stats. We don't really need to beat those to death. But there's 96% of Americans, they believe in God.
Really? It's interesting. 96% that's almost everybody. 80% say they're very spiritual.
Yet, 37% go to church. So they're either lying or the statistics are really, really inaccurate. How can you say I'm very spiritual? 80% and do you go to church?
Nah. Oh, OK. That means that 63% are doing something else. 63% are reading, gardening, golfing, shopping, sleeping, whatever they're doing.
In Canada, 73% are saying, who needs church? Those are alarming numbers, really. But that's why we go down on the streets and preach the gospel. You got a pretty big pool to fish in here.
73% of Canadians right there just don't go to any church. I think the numbers higher. I'd say 90% of people walk by. Don't even know what church is.
Aren't part of the truth at all. But how many of this 27% in Canada are devoted to Christ? Probably very, very small. Many people who attend, because if there's that many that attend, I'm going somewhere with all this, they go for various reasons.
I go to church because I'm guilty. I feel guilty. So I'm going to go. Kind of cleanse my conscience.
Go to confession. Go and just hear a good message that will warm up my heart. That maybe it'll ease my conscience a bit. Some, because of a cultural background.
Hey, where I grew up, everybody went to church. My family went to church. And it was the Christian thing to do. And if I don't go to church, then I'm neglecting my culture, my background, my upbringing.
Some are pressured by a spouse, a child, or a parent, or a loved one. So I just want to be a good example. It's surprising how many people we have not seen for many, many years will come back to church 20 years later, holding a bundle. Why?
Because they know that child needs this. Something in them says, I think I need to be a good example to my child and start them off in the church. We've seen it in this building many times. It happens everywhere.
Some come to make business contacts. If you have a job for me, let me know. So some come to find a mate. There's no doubt about it.
It's a great place to shop for a mate. Or you go to bridal school like Mary Nick did. But while churches are closing at a rapid rate in the Western world, I read something, this is fairly recent, it says in Canada, the next 10 years, 9,000 churches will close. 3,000 per year in the US.
In the UK, what's interesting? Because if you watch any of those home decorating shows that sometimes make it on our TV at home, you see a lot of places where they take in churches and they've converted them into homes. Or they take stuff from churches and use them in a home, like baptistals, those marble baptistals, man, they make an awesome bird bath. They're never going away.
So people are putting those in their gardens. I was saying at an Airbnb, what do they have? An old church pew for a bench to sit at the table. I go to the barbershop.
What do they have? An old church pew for you to sit and wait back and you can sit and wait in the barbershop. So which is, you know, you look at that and you think this is sad because it speaks to the community around that the church is not relevant. However, there's another story going on in our world.
Remember, always, always, always remember. I will build my church, Jesus Christ says. I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
So in other places in the world, in China, India, and the Middle East, the church is exploding. It's just exploding. The growth is amazing. Now you can't get statistics on it because in a lot of these places, they have to meet in secret.
They meet in sewer pipes. They meet in dungeons. They meet in caves. They meet in homes.
They meet in different places where they won't be found and sought out. Because in a lot of these places, it's illegal to meet as a church. But it's exploding. I read that in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are 20,000, 20,000 people coming to Christ every day.
That's huge. Tens of thousands in Latin America coming to Christ every single day. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Places with the highest persecution. Places with disease. Places with political opposition. Places where to be part of a church, you could pay with your life.
It's exploding. The church is exploding in these places. So again, let's go back to the question. Who needs church?
Well, here's the answer. I do. You do. We all do.
Now I'm going to say before I even go into this, that if you come to church just to come to church, you're not part of the church. The church is for, it is believers. It is those who know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. Each person immediately upon salvation, He died for you on the cross to take your sins, that you may be forgiven of all your sins.
The moment you say yes to Him, I am turning from my sin. I am saying yes to you. You are the only Savior. Save me.
The immediate moment. So many things happen in one flash blink of an eye. One, your sins are forgiven in a second. They're all gone.
Two, you have new life, eternal life, that you'll go to heaven. Three, you are filled with the Holy Spirit, immediately upon salvation. And number four, you were placed into the body of Christ. You're the universal church.
You become a member of the church. That's how you become a member. We don't have membership parents here. We don't have a membership role.
We don't have anything like that. Because each person who is trusted Christ is their Savior, are part of the church. And each person who comes here to fellowship is part of this church. So if you have not done that, if you've never come to Jesus Christ, today is the day you can do that.
You can turn from your sin. You can be saved from your sin. You can be forgiven of everything you've ever done. The past will be gone.
And you move forward as a member of the church in the body of Jesus Christ. Four reasons why I need the church. And I'm gonna go actually fairly quickly through these, because we have to sing at the end too. First of all, I need God's people.
Somebody told me when I moved to Halifax, the first thing you gotta do, find a good GP. What's a GP? General practitioner or doctor, okay? They call him a GP.
So these are all GP's. Good GP's for you, okay? So I found one, and here's four. I need God's people, I need God's principles, I need God's purpose, and I need God's presence.
Okay, so that's an easy way for you to try to remember this. First of all, I need God's people. All people have this kind of innate thing where you want to belong to a community. Something, a group, something bigger than yourself.
We all, you're in for that. If you don't have that, then you are what? Lonely. You're dead, yeah.
You're the dead or you're lonely. When you hear somebody who says, I don't have any family, I don't have anybody that I belong to, they're lonely. Even the guys who have been homeless that live down on the streets, do you ever notice what they do? They congregate together, because they have to be together with somebody.
Everybody has this desire to be with somebody, to be part of a group of something. The Bible word for community is fellowship. Clenania is a Greek word, fellowship. So God has given us this, and the reason I know that we all want to be part of community, there was nothing worse than this isolation period that we went through.
Oh my goodness, I hated it. Oh yeah, I got some nice walks in. I mean, I have my wife with me, so I wasn't totally isolated that way, but we had each other. But I gotta tell you, I got a little tiring, not seeing my grandchildren, not seeing my kids, not seeing my church family.
Being a, I felt like, okay, I can't stand this anymore. I'm just boxed into this little neighborhood. I walked like 50 kilometers a week in my neighborhood just to get out and I met all these neighbors that I didn't know I had. No, I'm part of a community.
Lawrence town. Never felt like home until this happened. But, so, you know, but God says here, in Psalm 68 verse six, it says, God makes a home for the lonely. He leads out the prisoners into prosperity.
Only the rebellious dwell in the parish land. God has a cure for isolation. God has given us the church. God has given us fellowship.
God has given us community where we can come together as a cure for isolation. You see, the church is different from anywhere else in the world. If I'm suffering, if I'm going through a difficult time, when I struggle, if somebody comes and sits down here weeping, somebody's going to come and sit down next to them and weep with them. If I'm discouraged, somebody's gonna come alongside and they're going to have the right help to encourage me.
When I struggle, I don't go down to City Hall. Do we have a new mayor? Same old gray mayor. Okay, so, or the community center or the local Tim Hortons and talk to the strangers.
I don't do that, do I? Where do I go? I go to my church family. That's where I get encouraged.
That's where I get strengthened. That's where my heart is set right with God. I can pour out my heart with God's family. In 1st Corinthians chapter 12 verses 26 and 27, it says, and if one member suffers, all the member suffers with it.
If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now, you are Christ's body and individually members of it. You know, this has been a brutal year for everybody. Isolation, COVID-19 and so on.
I lost my job. I lost my mom. We've had other things in the family. And you know what?
The first place I wanted to turn was the people in my church family. We need prayer for this. Please pray for this. We got cards.
Every card cheered us up. Every card. Every note. Every phone call.
Every text. Every email that came from you folks. We needed that. You don't get that in your school.
You don't get that from work. You don't get that anywhere else. You don't get that at your sports club. You only get that from the church.
We're a part of that body. You see, we live in a world of social media that has made us a non-social group of people. It's not a social world at all. It's a social media world.
It's not social. So we yearn for face to face. Mask to mask or half face to half face, whatever it is. We yearn for that.
We long for that. It's a connection. It's a touch. And we find this in our church.
I can't imagine getting encouragement or counsel or truth anywhere else. I need God's people. That's number one. Number two, I need God's principles.
Steady doses of truth. The scriptures taught in unapologetic truth. Encouragement for me to go and study these things for myself. I just started studying in 1 Samuel a few weeks ago.
Well, David Hanson spoke. That's Sunday. The very first week I'm going through 1 Samuel and David spoke on it. I thought, oh, my, I wouldn't encourage you.
I'm going to really dig into this. This is a really neat book. As he said, it's very interesting stuff. And I'm getting a lot out of it.
I'm learning an awful lot. It's been a while probably. I've probably read through it before, but I'm really digging into it now. I'm encouraged to do that.
Why? I'm getting God's truth all the time from this. 1 Timothy 3 verse 15 calls it church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth. I've often said if we had to change our sign at the front because of copyright infringement on Northbrook, because there's a little brook that runs underneath here.
Well, we take the Northbrook off. That's no problem. And somebody said, we can't call yourself a chapel because really you're affiliating yourself with this group and there's chapels and that's a copyright infringement. OK, we'll take that down.
But you know what? We leave the word Bible up. Because that's what we're about. Teaching the word of God unapologetically here.
We want to teach the word of God in its clarity. We want to live the word of God. We want the word of God to penetrate our lives. If it's telling us to stop doing something, we better stop doing it.
If it's telling us, you know what, this is something you probably should be doing and you haven't been doing it. We better start doing it. That's the way we need to take the word of God. I am so thankful that before us, men like Ray Fox, Don Salmons, Hilton Mackie, all of these men in the past, Ted White, Paul Hat, I'm just naming some of the men who were founders here at Northbrook, took the word of God very, very seriously.
And may we continue the next generation to keep that heritage, to keep firm and serious, that the church is about the word of God. It's about the principles of God. We have no other thing to turn to. We have no other things to turn to.
We have no other things to turn to. We have no other things to do. We have no other things to do. We have no other things to do.
We have no other principles of God. We have no other thing to turn to, but the scriptures for our answers in these things. In Acts 2, verse 42, it says, they broke bread, it says, they gave themselves to apostles doctrine. The word of God was front and center.
One author says, many churches want to hear nice optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or call to repentance. They want nice, lean programs directed to nice, clean families leading to growth without sacrifice. They want their organization to become bigger and bigger and bigger, even as their God becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. You take the word of God out of your church, God will get smaller.
Your programs might get bigger and your population might get bigger, but you will go in the wrong direction. We need the truth of God. I need God's principles, weak in and weak out. The other thing I need, number three, is I need God's purpose.
Everybody wants to know, why am I here? What am I doing? Where am I going? What's my purpose in life?
We all evaluate that. Everybody. I think when you're talking to people on the street, there's hardly anybody that will go by and say, well, I don't have something in my life that has some kind of meaning to me. Even the atheist says that.
My life is about how the universe treats me and things like this. Everybody has something that they want to have a purpose. They want to be part of something a cause that's bigger than themselves. But I've listed some things here.
There's no greater cause than the forgiveness cause. You want to jump on a cause? Bring forgiveness to people. You want to get on a cause?
The salvation cause. The gospel cause. Those are the greatest causes in the world, bringing Jesus Christ to lost souls. That's the purpose of the church.
That's the purpose for all of us. Philippians 1, verses 3-5, I take my God every time I remember you and all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel or fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. That's the cause. We are part of the body of Christ.
You see, we are in listeth. We are in listeth in this cause. What's the cause? Well, Jesus called it my father's business.
God's business is saving souls. God's business is reaching the lost. God's business is not willing to damage you perish, but that all should come through pendants. That's what we're enrolled in that.
Jesus said that as a voice, said to his mother when he was missing. Don't you know that I must be about my father's business? Our cause is the gospel. And it's not social cause, but it's one that changes lives, one life at a time.
You reach one life. That turns into 10. 10 to 100. Hundreds of thousands.
Many souls can be reached. You see, we wouldn't say this if we didn't believe that the city of Halifax could be turned upside down. We wouldn't say this. We wouldn't bother going downtown.
We wouldn't bother going door to door. We wouldn't bother preaching the gospel from this pulpit if we did not believe that sinners can come to Christ. That is the cause. And fourthly and finally, I need God's presence.
Now, can I enjoy God's presence alone? Oh, yes. I went on the trail the other day just to clear my head to try to think about what am I going to say today? And I'll tell you like birds, everything.
Leaves falling in my face, all that stuff, just the presence of God. I enjoyed it all by myself. I even put my earbuds in a little bit on the way back and listen to some praise and worship and tell it not in the national line, publish it not in the streets of Gath or the other way around. I actually at one point in time had to put my hands up in the air.
I was so touched by what I was hearing. As I was watching birds flying around, I was watching the trees change colors. The blue sky was in front of me. Yes, I can enjoy the presence of God when I buy myself.
But you know what? The Bible says for where two or three are gathered together in my name. They're in my midst. Now, I have to admit the other day on the trail, it felt special.
It felt like I was in a special place. That doesn't happen every day when I'm driving to my car. It doesn't happen all the time that I'm feeling that God is present with me. I know he is, but there are certain times you're in tune with that.
But you know what? When you come together and you meet with him here, you're pretty much in tune with that every time. When you come to the Lord's Supper and you remember him, when we worship and remember at the Lord's Supper, when we come and we sing his praises, we're going to sing at least another song. And you hear from his word, you're encouraged from his word.
When we gather in Sunday school to teach the children about the Savior, he is there with us. When we meet for prayer meeting, for thanksgiving. When we bring our concerns and others concerns before the throne of God. When we pray together, unite our hearts.
There's a presence of God that's there. When we meet at the men's study or the lady's study, I will be with you. I will meet with you. That's a wonderful promise.
It's a wonderful comfort for all of us. It's a taste of what heaven will be like. The church is the place where we corporately worship God and the Lord Jesus and he meets with us here. So in closing, I need church and you need church.
If you're a safe person, if you're a believer, if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord, if you know him, you need church. Why? Because we can't do it on our own. We need his presence.
We need his purpose. We need his principles. We need one another. We need his people.
You see, some of these things you can do on your own, we can sense the presence of God on your own. You can discover a purpose on your own somewhat, but you need others to be accountable to. You need iron to sharpen iron, as the scripture says. Together we are a body of Christ.
No one person is the whole body. No one person has all the gifts. No one person is everything. You need to be together.
That's why when one member of the body is hurting, the other members come around and rally to help that person, to help that part of the body. I put in there because drums always get boring. I grew up listening to music in the 70s and lots of it. All of a sudden, I'm sorry, you guys don't know what I mean by an album.
It's a black disc, a black disc on it. It's two sides. You actually have to flip it over and there's another side. But as some of these bands decided to go on tour and play live music, all of a sudden it's a double live album.
You know why it was a double live album? Because at least one of those discs in there had about four drums solos in it. Where the drummer flailed away, more than you know what I'm talking about, just pounded away on the drums for 20 minutes. I got to tell you, the first time I heard one, I thought, oh wow, he knows how to drum.
Wow, listen to that. Okay, you know what, I think I just got to use the other record because this one's getting pretty boring. And then you pick up the new Emerson Lake and Palmer album. And there's three in it.
And two of the discs are like all drum solos. So if we said we're going to sing, Boldu, come on up here, forget the guitars, you're just going to drum us through it. But you know what, that'd be okay for the first one. But I'll tell you what, nine songs.
I've just drum. Hmm. So, so we need to be together. We need the orchestra together.
We need the band together. We need to be playing together. We need to be in tune together. You see, if you're in the army and they, Uncle Sam, who just stood up, says you're going off to war, that's in the States.
But if Uncle Justin said here, well, we'll think of a war, maybe. But if you're going off to war and you're a soldier, are you going to get on a plane by yourself and fly over to someplace carrying all your weapons and going alone? No. You need your army with you.
You need everybody. You need the whole company with you. That's the way the church is. If you're playing football or hockey, now how great would it be to just have a net and you and a puck and you skate around, you score a million goals, but it would get a little bit dull after a while.
God wants us together as a team. You get the picture? We need to be together. In Acts chapter one and two, we read this phrase twice.
I like it because it's in King James, it says, and they were together in one accord. That doesn't mean that they had a Honda. It means that they were all together and they were on the same page. The believers got together with one cause, one purpose, one God, one fellowship, one accord.
They were in agreement. I have to say, as I went through and studied this, I am glad to be part of the church. I've been part of this church for 30 years. I don't know anywhere I'd rather be through rough times, through great times.
I think over 30 years here, I've spent almost exactly half my life at Northbrook. I can't think of any other place. I raised my family here. I've wept here.
I've laughed here. I've eaten here. I've never gone hungry here. But this has been part of my life.
I can't imagine being anywhere else. It's no wonder that in Hebrews the writer says, and let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. Father, thank you that you have wonderfully placed us in the Church of Jesus Christ.
You have given us this fellowship together where we can come and be with your people, where we can come and hear your principles, your word, your truth, where we can come and be encouraged with the purpose of reaching the lost, the purpose of making your word penetrate this dark and lost world. And Father, I thank you as well that when we do come here, when we do meet, we do so as we have a promise of your presence. Father, I pray that you would keep us together, that you would bring us together. I pray for those as earlier mentioned that have been missing.
May they return? Whether it's at Northbrook or somewhere else, may they return to walking with you, may they return to a body of fellowship of believers to be part of, to be united with them. Father, again, I thank you that in these days of COVID you have protected us to the point that we can meet, the point that we can have fellowship together, whether it's a picnic outdoors or whether it's the Lord's Supper here or a prayer meeting. Thank you.
Thank you for this protection. We don't take it for granted. We pray for those who don't have the same privilege. And we ask Lord in your mercy that you would extend this to us as we continue forward.
Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. We're gonna sing a song. I thought I'd be finished earlier when we'd sing too, but we'll sing one.
You may, if you could leave that, build your kingdom here. I had to find a song, a book church. Just so you don't need to go home and say, we say, build your kingdom here, Northbrook's turning to a bunch of guys that are amylennial, King of theology, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not the point of the song.
So.