As you assemble for worship as a corporate body, you are “a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21). You “are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (v. 22). God dwells in your midst. You draw near to Him. When you sing praises to God, He is especially present in love and grace to bless you and to fulfill His covenant promises to you. “You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of lsrael (Ps. 22:3). The gathered people of God, meeting with Him, become a piece of heaven.

Here is an important outcome. In the context of this gospel worship, with God’s gracious presence, you listen to the reading and preaching of the Scriptures. You hear the pastor’s voice more importantly, by the grace of God, you hear the voice of the Master as the Holy Spirit illumines His word in your heart and mind. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). Jesus Christ becomes your teacher.

Citizenship is another aspect of this same theme. Scripture declares, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3.20). You, therefore, belong to another world. “You are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19). From this perspective, you are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13).

The church of Jesus Christ is heaven born. As individuals, men and women are born again or born from above (John 3:3). Collectively, Christians form a body born from above.

The Bible portrays this with grand imagery. When you come together you “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). This heavenly Jerusalem is the New Jerusalem, the church, the bride of Christ. In a sense, this church, the New Jerusalem, is presently coming down out of heaven (Rev. 3:12). We have the inestimable privilege of being citizens of this heavenly city.

The Apostle Paul uses another reinforcing image when he declares, “We are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20). In the strict sense of the term, an embassy is a group of people sent by a sovereign as his representatives to a foreign land. The embassy is not the place but the people.

We usually call the place where an ambassador works and lives the embassy. In a similar way, we call the buildings in which we worship churches. The church however, is really people, just as an embassy is really people. You and your church are an embassy of heaven.

There are important ramifications to all of this. You and your congregation actually do represent heaven in this world. The only contact men and women in this world may have with things heavenly will be your church worship and fellowship.

Read 1 John 4:11 carefully: “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” John’s thought is profoundly simple. People see God in your love for others in the congregation.

The Apostle Paul sees something similar in worship where God and His Word are vitally present. With corrective measures, he says of an unbeliever who encounters the Corinthians at worship, “The secrets of his heart are disclosed: and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you” (1 Cor. 14:25).

God’s heaven is at hand in your worship. Think of it. You represent both God and His heaven.