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Some say that we must be in church to worship. Others say that it's fine to worship at home. What does the Bible say? Join me, Pastor Richard, as we seek answers and strive to please God in all that we do.

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Morning, church. Today we have two scripture readings. Number one taken from Nehemiah chapter 11, verse 1 to 2, and the second reading is taken from Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19 to 25. First reading. Nehemiah chapter 11, verse 1 to 2. Now the leaders of the people live in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of 10 to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other towns, and the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19. The full assurance of faith. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that they opened for us through the curtain. That is, through his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil condition, and our bodies washed with pure water. Verse 23. Not neglecting to meet together, as is a habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the days drawing near. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

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Alright? You're married, your wife is very pregnant, you're sitting on the sofa together, and she's starting to feel some contractions. The wife says, Honey, I think the contractions are starting. The husband says, Oh, really? Do you think this is the right channel? The game should have started by now, but they're still showing the commercials. They're not close together yet, but maybe we should head to the hospital. No, no, the match is always on channel five. It has to be there. Did you remember to pick up the snacks this morning? The wife says, My water just broke. We need to leave now. If we leave to buy the snacks now, we'll miss the game. The wife says, I think they're showing the game at the hospital cafeteria. Oh, why didn't you just say so? Let's let's go, I'll get the keys. It's a ridiculous story, right? It's really ridiculous. But sometimes I can relate to this story. Sometimes I feel like the person I'm speaking to isn't really being present at all. Other times I'm the one who's not really being present. That's not good. That's not good. But what's worse is that sometimes we do this with God. You might be reading a morning devotional while listening to the news, catching up on work email during the Sunday sermon. It's not good because worship requires us to be truly present. I lived for about three years in Shangri-La. Not the hotel. I didn't live for three years in the hotel. But I lived in Shangri-La up in the mountains, a Tibetan town. And the predominant religion there is naturally Tibetan Buddhism. And so they spend a lot of time thinking about points. Performing good deeds earns you points. Performing bad deeds takes away points. And so your whole life will be spent accumulating or losing points. And what are these points good for? What can you turn them in for? Well, in their thinking, it's your next life because they believe in reincarnation. And so they believe if I end this life with enough good points, with a good positive balance of points, you know what? I'm probably going to start off the next life in a better position. Likewise, if I end off this life with a very negative balance of points, I'm probably going to start off in a much worse position in my next life. And so they're motivated to earn as many points as possible. But earning these points is difficult. It's not just so easy. First of all, it's hard to know how much each deed is worth. How many points are taken away if I accidentally step on a bug and crush it? I don't really know. I'm not too sure. How many points are earned if I were to provide a meal for an orphan? I don't know. There's no actual scoring guide or scorecard. But one good deed in Tibetan Buddhism that is sure to give you a lot of points is a pilgrimage to a holy temple. All right, they have different uh special holy temples there. And so as you make your way there, what they would do is every three steps, they would then prostrate themselves on the ground, then get all the way back up again, take three steps, and repeat. And depending on the pilgrimage, this journey could take a month or more. Earning points takes time, it's hard work. And the followers still need to earn a living, they still need to eat, they still need to sleep, they need to generally live life. And so they innovate. They innovate. Shangri-La has the largest prayer wheel in the world. And it takes a minimum of about 10 strong adults to make it spin around. And it has many mantras on it and the repeated many, many times. And so each turn of the wheel is in essence earning quite a number of points for each person who's taking part in this. They also print these mantras on cloth flags. They string them along mountaintops and high areas. And the understanding is that each time the wind flutters a flag, the mantra is invoked, and another point is earned. And these mantras are understood as having special sounds or words that are imbued with spiritual power. And I've even seen prayer wheels that are powered by hydropower and ones that the wind will blow around. And so, in a way, they've accomplished something that our Singapore society values. They found a way to work smarter, not harder. But for us as Christians, we're called to something different. Our worship requires presence. Our worship requires presence. Now there are some people who may say, I can just attend the online service, I don't really need to go to church. There are others who might say, I can't join on a Sunday morning because my child needs tuition. And it's true that we can listen to very highly skilled and experienced preachers online. I personally enjoy the preaching of Alistair Begg and even the late Timothy Keller. I find wow, they're really amazing when they preach. They're very skilled and they're excellent communicators. So why do we need to be physically present for worship? If we think about worship songs, again, if you go to YouTube, you can find Chris Tomlin, you can find Phil Wickham, Elevation Worship, Bethel Music, Hill Song Worship, you can find all these, and they write many of the songs that we sing. The musical quality is top-notch. So why is it that we need to be physically present to worship together? Why is it? What's the difference? Is there any difference here? And if we're talking about our children, aren't they important to God too? Their studies are important, right? Especially the PSLE year, uh, if they're going for O levels, you know, we just missed church for maybe one or two months while we're having a lot of revision and tuition. Is that really such a big deal? Church, why do we need to be physically together for worship? You see, all throughout history, this is what God has expected for us. In the early years before Jesus came, the people had to go to the tabernacle for worship. They weren't to just worship God anyhow, anyway, they were to come to the tabernacle for worship. Later on, the temple was built for worshiping God, and regardless of how far away they lived. The people were expected to go to the temple to worship God several times a year, every single one of them. In Ezra, they focused on rebuilding the temple, which had been destroyed, as we know from our series this year. And you know what? It was the altar was the first thing that was prioritized to be rebuilt. All throughout the early years, God expected people to gather together to worship him. And in later years, God still expected his followers to gather together to worship him. Our brother Sylvester read for us some verses from Hebrews earlier, where Christians were reminded that Jesus' sinless life, death, and resurrection meant that they could now worship God directly without a priesthood as an intermediary. Instead, Jesus had become the high priest, making them acceptable before God. Church, why do we need to be physically present for worship? The passage in Hebrews it goes on to remind Christians to not neglect meeting together, but to continue meeting and encouraging one another in their faith. And this extends to us today. All of us who would be called Christian cannot give up gathering together. We cannot. We cannot. We can't just be a Christian, but not like the church, not like other people call themselves Christian, and just somehow try to keep our faith alone by ourselves. We cannot. We're told not to neglect meeting together, but to continue meeting and encouraging one another in the faith. You know, T.D. Jakes, he's a very charismatic preacher. Francis Chan, he's an inspiring speaker. Timothy Keller was an excellent communicator. If you didn't know Chat GPT, another AI, you can ask it. It can craft a custom sermon for you each Sunday. Did you ever think about that? Why is it that we need to be here physically together for worship? It's because God has not called you to consume preaching. He's not called you to consume worship songs. He's not called you to be a consumer Christian at all. He hasn't called us just to consume. He has called us to be disciples. We just had our memory verse, right? We're all called to be disciples. He's called us to continue gathering together, whether it's convenient or not. He's called us to make sacrifices for that were necessary. Sacrificing a chance to sleep in in the morning on Sundays. Perhaps having to schedule tuition for other times in the week. Being a disciple means we need to come together regularly. Being a disciple means collaborating together to advance God's agenda, his plans, his purposes. Being a disciple means fellowshipping together, laughing together, crying together, celebrating together, praying together. Being a disciple means that I'm going to learn from you, and you're going to learn from me. We're going to grow together. Being a disciple means that we physically come together for worship. But it's not enough just to be physically present. Worship also requires that we're mentally present. And I don't know why it is that it's more common today than ever before in history to be physically present, but not really mentally present. Why is it that I struggle to be fully present at home sometimes with my family? Why is it that nowadays I really, really struggle to watch a full-length movie all the way through? It's really hard for me. I struggle with that. Why is it that I find it a challenge sometimes to listen to a sermon that's longer than 35 or 40 minutes? Why is it so hard to be mentally present? The biggest reason, all right, is right here. I think we're all aware of that. Our worship requires us to be mentally present. For us, it's not about earning points. Our worship requires us to be mentally present as well as physically present. That means that when we gather together, my dear church family, it is time to put away TikTok. It is time to put away Instagram and WhatsApp and Shopee. It is time to stop reading the news for the day. And we worship the Lord together, physically present and mentally present. We live in the information age. There's more distractions than ever before. The mobile phones, the iPads, TV, we've got YouTube, there are flyers, there are advertisements, uh, we've got door-to-door sales and telemarketing, we've got WhatsApp, we've got email. It goes on and on and on. We're confronted every day with a thousand things competing for our attention. Our lives are becoming ever more busy. And it's impacting our culture. We don't even speak in full sentences anymore. Is that right? Work isn't needed as soon as possible. It's needed ASAP. We don't do visitation at Kutek Poit Hospital. We go to KTPH. My daughter's in school, they have their CCA, their CCE, FGTP, and they go for PE. We don't even use full sentences anymore. We go to work, we're talking about our KPIs, right? We're expected to multitask all the time, and honestly, we are doing a very poor job of it. We're declining in both the quality and the quantity of time spent being fully present in the moment. I want to reread these the first two verses of Nehemiah chapter eleven. It says, Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other towns. And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem. What makes the city holy? What is it that makes the city holy? Holy is one of those words we hear often as Christians, but but what does it mean exactly? When we share holy communion, what is it that makes this thing holy? During Christmas time, we we sing silent night, holy night. I wonder what it means to live a holy life. I wonder if it's possible for us to live a holy life. See, holy means set apart and sacred or devoted to God. Set apart and sacred or devoted to God. And so in Nehemiah 11, it was important to them that the city set apart for the worship of God would have people in it, including those not just the politicians, but just the regular people. They should be there in the city. Jerusalem was and is regarded as the holy city, the one set apart and sacred for God. So the resettlement of Jerusalem, which it's talking about there in chapter 11, it wasn't about commerce. It wasn't really about politics. It wasn't about government, it was about worshiping God. The holy city needed to be fully populated to serve its purpose. And it's not enough for only the leaders to worship God. Worship is for every Christian, every follower of God. And worship requires presence. Now, are there exceptions? What about those who are homebound? What about those who catch the flu on the weekend? How can they be present with us here, physically present in the church? Well, okay, there's valid exceptions. Of course, there's valid exceptions. And if you're not feeling well, of course, we urge you, please stay home and recover. But these exceptions don't invalidate the rule of what God expects and what God has told us. And that's that we should be physically present to worship Him. And not just physically present, we should be mentally present as well. This leaves me with a problem. Because while for me, maybe I don't struggle with being physically present on Sundays, I do sometimes struggle with being mentally here fully. Sometimes I it's hard to push out of my mind all the other things that are trying to demand my attention. And God is able to see what others sometimes do not. He can see when I stop listening and just start letting the words wash over me, wash past me. God can see what others do not. And so, church, I want to ask this morning, what about you? Do you let other things get in the way of being physically present? Are you regularly missing Sunday worship? Regularly missing connect groups? Or are you physically present but maybe mentally not fully here? Scrolling Instagram right now? Are you checking flights for our church camp already? See, Christianity isn't based on a point system. It's based on relationship with God through Christ Jesus. God desires your worship genuine and from the heart. That's what he desires from us. There's a the Matt Redmond song, who I believe began Anglican, if I'm not wrong. I'm coming back to the heart of worship. I've always struggled to sing that song because I feel a bit insincere, sincere. Am I really not satisfied with my worship? Maybe that was just Matt Redmond. But you know, I wonder as we look at worship requiring us to be fully present, physically present, mentally present. I wonder if some of us we do need to come back to what is the heart of worship. Because it's not about a point system where we oin we earn points by sitting in a pew, we earn points by putting something in the bag for tithing, we we earn points for this, we earn points. We are to worship God fully present, fully in the moment. Fully in the moment, physically and mentally worshiping Him. And so I'm going to invite the worship team to come forward at this time. And in about two minutes, we're just going to have a song as response. But I want to ask you if this is something that you also struggle with at times, being fully present when we're coming together. I want to invite you and challenge you. Would you make a commitment just between you and God today? Lord, you know I struggle. You know that sometimes I really find it hard to pay attention, to be fully present. Would you help me? I'm committing. I'm committing, Lord. I'm going to put away the emails. I'm going to put away Instagram. I'm going to put away whatever it is that I turn to when I'm struggling. I'm going to press through because you deserve my worship. You deserve me to be both physically present and mentally present. You deserve it because God does deserve it. He deserves our worship. And church, the most beautiful, wonderful thing happens when we press in to worship. Because at that time we begin to feel our burdens being removed. Those things that are weighing on us. We feel them being taken away. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, there's something mysterious and wonderful that takes place. Because while the circumstances haven't changed, we change. God changes us through our worship. We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishan Christian Church, please visit our website at ycanglican.com. Have a blessed day.