The American church’s slide towards individualism and its corresponding neglect of local church attendance hurts not only the local church; it undermines the health of the individual Christian, depriving him of the blessed gift of eternal security. In other words, the church maintains the believer’s well-being just as much as the believer maintains the church’s well-being.
The Love Connection to Assurance
In 1 John 3:14, the apostle John tells his readers that assurance of salvation—the knowledge that a Christian can joyfully embrace the return of Christ because the Christian knows that he or she has been redeemed by the blood of Christ—flows through his or her love of the saints. John writes, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” In other words, Christians can have assurance of salvation through loving interactions with other Christians. Assurance flows through knowledge that is applied or lived out within the context of a Christian community.
The Church Connection to Assurance
Admittedly, such a conclusion is not stated explicitly as a command. John did not write, “Thou must attend church.” But the link between his command to love and local church membership proves inescapable. Those who do not attend or who do not regularly interact with their local church will lack the opportunities needed to live out their faith and to secure the assurance of salvation. Stated positively to love Christians, a Christian must spend time with others Christians. And the one place ordained by Christ in which Christians can consistently meet one another, fellowship with one another, and care for one another is the local church.
John’s argument does not imply that relationships cannot form outside the walls of the church. To love the brethren faithfully, Christians must push beyond the limits of Sunday morning services. But loving the brothers can never be anything less than worship. After all, the author of Hebrews tells Christians not to forsake meeting together because their meetings provide them with the fuel and the motivation for ministry. Worship stirs up Christians “to love and good works” (Heb 10:25). Christians come to church to glorify God through communing with God and helping others to commune with God through their congregation’s corporate prayers, preaching, singing, reading, and celebrations of the sacraments. The nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon once noted that if everyone believed that they could honor God while skipping church, then “there would be no visible Church, there would be no ordinances. That would be a very bad thing.” Moreover such togetherness – loving worship that exceeds the bounds of ethnic demographics, politics, sports, and hobbies – beautiful demonstrates the glorious of Christ to the unsaved visitor among them. To love the saints, Christians must attend church.
But loving the brothers must also be more than Sunday morning worship. John argues in 1 John 3:17–18 that love concerns itself with practical needs: “17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” Christians who love one another will do more than talk, pray, and sing with each other at church. They will care for each other during the week. They will follow up with those who are sick and bring them a meal. They will watch the single mother’s kids for a night so that she can rest. And they will pay the widow’s electric bill. They will love in deed and action.
Where do Christians learn of those needs? They come across them through the normal rhythms of the local church. A single man who faithfully attends worship notices that an elderly brother has not attended for a few weeks and gives him a call—and then a ride to the next service. The couple sitting next to the single mother in Sunday school learns of her exhaustion as they talk in the minutes leading up to the start of their classes. Others pay the widow’s electric bill because they learn of the need while interacting with her during the church’s visitation program. By being part of a church, the members gain awareness of needs that provide them with opportunities to live out their faith—the very opportunities that will give them an assurance of their salvation.
Final Thoughts
Though the local church needs believers, believers need the local church to have vibrant Christian lives. In addition to stewarding and preaching the gospel, which saves, the church also facilitates the believer’s sanctification and his or her awareness of salvation. The local church provides Christians with the community that they need to live out their faith through loving their neighbors, which produces assurance. Dear Christian, if you long to have a vibrant Christian life, if you long to have assurance of salvation and no fear of death, then root your life in a local church.