Is Church Practical?

John 20:31

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“I just want it to be practical.” That’s a normal wish for us and in various things in our life. We want our houses to be practical, we want our clothing to be practical we want our cars to be practical.

Practical just means that we want them to serve us, to act or function in ways that are beneficial to us. You might hear Christians say the same thing about what they desire out of the Sunday morning gathering when they’re together with Christians in worship. “I just want it to be practical”

And that’s a that’s a worthy wish there too, but it helps us understand or forces us to know what practical means. I would assert, or suggest, to you that there is nothing more practical, nothing more practical that happens in that whole Sunday morning service then when the Word of God is read out loud for your hearing.

Listen to how St. John emphasizes just how practical, how active, for your benefit the word is.

These [words] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:31)

When the Old Testament lesson is read it points you and all of the hearers there to the Savior promised of God for the salvation of sinners.

When the Epistle lesson is read, a letter to the early Christian church, it shows the life of Jesus, his dying and his rising alive and at work among sinners who believe on that name to rescue them from their sins.

When the gospel lesson is read we even stand for it, often, we recognize that in those words Christ is given to us his living and his dying in his rising.

What more practical thing can there possibly be than hearing these words? St. John tells us the words themselves bring their own power they bring the power to create and sustain faith in our otherwise dead hearts so that we believe and that by believing we have life.

Have life dear Christians. Hear these words and then believing you will live. Amen.