THINK TOGETHER.
Do you go to church? Do you like to go to church?
READ TOGETHER.
Matthew 18:15-17. 15“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
I hope you answered yes to the “Think Together” question above. I hope you go to church, and I hope you like going to church. I’m sure there are times when church is lots of fun, and other times when it can seem a bit boring. That’s OK. Church can be lots of different things at the same time.
Did you know that Jesus invented the church? The verses from Matthew’s gospel above tell us one of the first times that Jesus used the word church to describe his followers. The word church simply means a gathering. Back then it was actually a very common word. A church was any get together of people. Jesus used a word that everyone would understand to describe what his disciples should be – a gathering, a get together, a church.
That’s why we go to church with other Christians. Jesus wants us to gather. He wants us to gather together to sing, and pray, and learn the Bible, and yes, to have fun.
But the situation described above in Matthew 18 is NOT fun. Read it again. What is happening?
Jesus is describing what to do when people in the church sin or disagree. He is describing a process for what to do when this happens. First, go to the person alone and tell them their fault or sin. If they apologize, great!
If not, then bring one or two more people who also know about their mistake. If they apologize, great!
If not, tell the leaders of the church about the person’s fault or sin.
Of course nobody likes this part of church. In fact, some people avoid church for this very reason – they don’t ever want to be told what to do, or confronted when they do something wrong. But anytime you put a gathering of sinful people together, well, someone is going to sin.
We don’t go to church only when it’s fun. We go when it’s hard. And we don’t go to church only with people we like. We go to church with people we may not like, people who may have hurt us or sinned against us. Why? Because that’s how we prove that we want to be like Jesus more than we want to have fun all the time. It’s how we prove that we trust God even when things are difficult. That we love Jesus enough to try to love everyone else.
Because of Jesus we can gather with other Christians in church.
With Jesus we can go to church even when it’s hard.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Plan to go to church on Sunday. Talk with your kids about why we go to church. Is there anything about church they don’t like? How can trusting God overcome those dislikes?
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, thank you for inventing church where we can go and grow into your likeness. Amen.
TLICfamily 