When you come to church, you receive blessings from the Lord that you cannot get anywhere else. God has promised that as His church gathers together, He will bless them in a way that is distinct from when they are on their own. Jesus promises that when two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of them (Matt. 18:19–20). The Apostle Paul, speaking of when the outsider comes into worship, says that our prayer should be that he realizes what is always true: “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25). In the book of Revelation, Jesus tells us that He walks among the lampstands, which are His churches (Rev. 2:1). 

1. Because the Bible commands it.
The first answer to that question is the most simple and basic one: because the Bible tells us to! In Hebrews 10, the writer tells his readers of the great privilege that is theirs. Because of Christ’s work, they—and we—have the awesome privilege to come into the Holy Place. He is referring to the Old Testament, where only the high priest was allowed into the Holy of Holies in God’s temple—and even then only once a year. The mind-boggling truth is that we as believers in Christ can come to the Holy God because of Jesus’ death. The curtain has been torn, and our Great High Priest has opened up the way for us to approach Him.
The writer of Hebrews then gives three applications, all of which begin with “let us.” Note that these are addressed corporately to God’s people:

“Let us draw near” (Heb. 10:22). Come and be cleansed by Christ and be forgiven.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” (Heb. 10:23). Stay strong, don’t give up, keep believing this message of hope.
“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24). You do not and cannot live the Christian life on your own. In your coming to church, be other-person centered.

The author then issues the command: “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. 10:25).
The writer to the Hebrews places our going to church in the context of living out the Christian life—it is simply what Christians do. We go to church because it is for our own good and the good of others. Meeting together is how we keep pressing on as Christians in a world that can easily cause us to lose hope. The danger for the Hebrews and for us is that we neglect identifying with and participating in the body of Christ. It was unthinkable in the New Testament for a Christian not to go to church.
2. Because we are created to worship God.
There is, however, a deeper reason that we should go to church than just that the Bible commands us to. We go to church because of the nature of who God is. He is worthy of our worship and our adoration. The reason we exist is “to glorify and enjoy Him.” God is our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer.
In the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, God is “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Q&A 4). Those who have been brought into a relationship with this God cannot but want to gather with others to praise Him. We were made to worship Him.
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There is no other Redeemer, no other Savior, no other hope, and in that we rejoice and proclaim Him. This message is the gospel; it is truly good news. God has sent His Son in history to find and save sinners, to pay the debts we owed, to face the punishment we deserved, and to forgive—to bring rebels into His family.

It had been a remarkable few days for the Apostle Peter, which had followed a remarkable month and several remarkable years. He had found himself preaching to thousands, with three thousand responding in faith to his preaching. Every day seemingly brought wonderful new opportunities. A man unable to walk from birth was healed in the name of Jesus Christ. The people were astounded, and Peter took the opportunity again to open his mouth and preach. The religious leaders were not enamored of Peter’s message. They were greatly annoyed and had Peter arrested. The rulers, the elders, and the scribes wanted to know: “What right and what authority have you got to be speaking the way you do?” Again, Peter found his voice and declared to them: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” There was astonishment on the part of the religious leaders, but they warned Peter and John to speak no more of this man. They were to keep the only message of salvation to themselves (Acts 2:1–4:22).
The world hasn’t changed. Few things are more offensive to people than the belief that there is no salvation apart from faith in Christ. We’ve all heard people say, “There are many ways up the mountain to God; we all take different paths” or “What really matters is that you are sincere.” In the culture of which I am a part, people believe in “justification by death.” All you have to do is die, and somehow you are ushered into a better place. There is an unthinking assumption of relativistic pluralism, that all religions are basically the same and that we shouldn’t take any of them too seriously.
Tragically, there are those who call themselves Christians, even in churches, who would believe that the one God worshiped by us is the same Lord worshiped in different ways by Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. From our earliest days, our culture tells us that we’ve all got a book, all got a symbol, all got a special day. All religions are the same.
It is helpful for us to think about what we believe about the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to these challenges. We believe that He is the Son of God, the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, born of a virgin; He lived a sinless life, was crucified on the cross, was buried, and on the third day rose again to life forevermore. Without these things, we do not have Christianity. Jews are insistent that Jesus was not the Messiah, and they believe that they are still awaiting their Messiah. Islam declares that Jesus didn’t die on the cross and that the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God is blasphemous. At its very core, Christianity is completely incompatible with these other religions.
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We know our hearts are easily divided, going our own way, away from the Lord. David is praying that God would keep him from being two-faced and double-minded, and that God would give him a single, steady aim, unmoved by the threats and pressures, only looking to God and His great name.

My father-in-law has challenged us as a family to learn Psalm 86:10–13 this year. It’s a wonderful psalm full of rich encouragement of how to live when under pressure. At the end of the psalm, David even fears for his existence, and the main message of the psalm is how to lay hold of God in times of personal need. The key to the whole psalm is the last phrase of verse 11: “Unite my heart to fear your name.” There is nothing like pressure to show how divided our hearts are. It is as if the circumstantial pressure exposes the spiritual fault lines of our hearts.

The structure of the psalm is like a sandwich; verses 1–7 and verses 14–17 are a cry for help, and in between, in verses 8–13, is the meat with a section on the praise of God.
The psalm begins with David pleading for God to answer him: “Incline your ear . . . answer me . . . be gracious . . . gladden my soul” (Ps. 86:1, 3, 4). He addresses himself to the “LORD,” using the name that God revealed to His covenant people. David recognizes that he is in a relationship with God. It is as if he is saying: “This is who I am, and this is who You are, so Lord, be all that You are to me.”
As we move into verses 8–13, God, and not David’s circumstances, dominates. You’ll notice the Lord is spelled without the small capital letters—it’s a different name in the Hebrew from “LORD.” The “Lord” (without small capital letters) focuses attention on God’s might and power. God is immeasurably great. There is nowhere else to go when dealing with life’s difficulties. The majestic power of God marks Him out as unique. There is no alternative deity that can demand universal worship, and that is the big reason that he prays, “Unite my heart to fear your name” (Ps. 86:11). God is One, there is no other. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells the people: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

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