(With thanks to a sermon by Louie Giglio and books by Matt Redman and Matt Hyam)
For those of you who knew that today I was going to speak about worship I wonder what your expectations were, if any. When you came to Church today, I wonder what expectations you had of our worship, if any. When I refer to ‘worship’ what thoughts, feelings, emotions or memories are stirred up? As we worship together, what happens, why do we do it? Worship!
Erma Brombeck was an American journalist with a great sense of humour. She wrote books with great titles such as ‘The grass is always greener over the septic tank’; and she came out with great quotes such as ‘If you can laugh at it you can live with it’ and ‘never loan your car to anyone you’ve given birth to’. Erma also had a keen eye for living out the Christian life. She once wrote this with reference to worship: “In our churches we sing ‘Make a joyful noise to the Lord’ while our faces reflect the sadness of one who has just buried a rich aunt who left everything to her pregnant hamster”.
I love the psalms! They are full of just about every emotion under the sun. They are full of joy, sorrow, praise, confession, adoration, exasperation, exaltation and perspiration. It’s all there. It was the hymn book Jesus knew and here are a few quotes regarding joy.
Psalm 47 begins like this: “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the Lord most high; the great King over all the earth!” Psalm 66 begins like this: “Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the Glory of his name; make his praise glorious!” Psalm 81: “sing for joy to God our strength.” Psalm 95: “come, let us sing for joy to the lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.”
But why do we worship? Who do we worship? Where should we worship? When should we worship? What is worship? If you’ve just written down those questions and you are now expecting a five point Sermon using words all beginning with the letter W then I apologise. That would be far too predictable!
Is worship all about joy, or is there more to it? Is worship really much more to do with our lifestyle than the songs we sing? Matt Hyam is the senior pastor at Southampton vineyard church. In 2004 he wrote a book called ‘I still have more questions than answers’. In the book he describes the painful yet liberating process he went through and is still going through regarding the question of ‘worship’. Matt is a guitarist. He learned to play the guitar very soon after becoming a Christian and he ended up ‘leading worship’ at a twenties group. In his book he writes this: ‘we only ever sang about three different songs, either because the Holy Spirit only ever led us to these three or because they were the only three I knew. I’m a little hazy on that one.’
There was a time when Matt would rather lead worship than do anything else. However, there came a time, for want of another word, when he became bored with singing songs. Is anyone here bored with singing songs? Sometimes I get bored with songs.
In today’s Bible reading I want to focus on verse 23. Jesus said, “True worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the father seeks.” In the gospel, the account we have of the Life and ministry of Jesus, He says very little about worship. In Matthew chapter two wise men came to worship Jesus (2:2); and I believe that wise-men and wise-women today come to worship Jesus. The evil King Herod said that he wanted to know where Jesus was so he could worship him, when really he wanted to murder the infant Jesus (2:8). The devil tempted Jesus to worship him, offering him power without sacrifice (4:9). Jesus countered the temptation by quoting from his Bible (Deut 6:13) where it says worship the Lord your God and serve him only (4:10). That’s the first recorded occasion when Jesus refers to worship in Matthew’s gospel. The other occasion is where Jesus refers to people who worship God in vain (15:9); worshipping with their lips when their hearts are far away (Isaiah 29:13).
A former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple wrote this: “to worship …is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”
The Quakers (‘aka’ the Society of Friends) are traditionally known for long, extended periods of silence when they meet together. The English Quaker Caroline Stephen wrote this: ‘A Friends’ meeting, however silent, is at the very lowest a witness that worship is something other and deeper than words, and that it is to the unseen and eternal things that we desire to give the first place in our lives’.
Worship is so much more than words, so much more than songs, so much more than a Sunday gathering, so much more than bread and wine at Communion.
Just in case you’re interested I’m not going to bother with a dictionary definition. I’m hoping to tease out something of the Bible-definition.
Louie Giglio is an American teacher, preacher and song writer. He says that worship always begins with God. God wants to be seen and known by you and me; but without true glimpses of God we will invariably try to shrink Him down to our own size. Worship always begins with God. We worship because of God, we worship as a response to God, we worship in praise of God; worship always begins with God, not with us; and that is such an important concept; because worship does not begin with us. God creates and we thank Him for it. God forgives and we praise him for it. God reaches down into our world by sending Jesus and we respond to Him in worship. God calls us by name and we worship Him. Worship always begins with God, so worship is not primarily about choosing hymns and songs. It is not primarily about having a service book, or a card, or a data projector, or an organ, or a band with guitars and drums or new songs or old. It is all about God. Worship is our response to God’s worth-ship.
The 19th Century Scottish theologian Thomas Carlyle simply said that ‘wonder is the basis of worship’. As I gaze in wonder at the beauty of creation; the intricacy of new life at the time of conception, and the mind blowing immensity of the size of the universe, I find myself filled with awe and wonder; and it leads me to worship God.
Two and ½ years ago when I was still confined to bed a friend bought me a small book by Matt Redman called ‘facedown’. It’s a lovely little book and I am indebted to its clarity. The author describes how in the book of revelation chapter one John encounters the risen Jesus. His eyes blaze like fire. His face shines like the sun. John is simply overwhelmed and he shrinks to the ground in reference. Later, in chapter seven John describes how the angels around the throne of God fall down on their faces in worship.
Ezekiel gives us a glimpse into heaven. The prophet beholds an appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord and he writes, ‘I fell face down’ (1:28).
Also in the Old Testament Daniel saw a vision of the Lord almighty. His face shines like lightning. His eyes blaze like flaming torches. Daniel writes, ‘I bowed with my face towards the ground and was speechless’ (Daniel 10:15).
I happen to think that the word ‘awesome’ is overused. God is awesome and his creation is awesome. However, the latest gadget, the latest YouTube video, or even the latest Matt Redman song is not awesome by comparison.
God’s creation is awesome. Did you know that every second the sun burns up four million tonnes of its own mass, releasing energy equivalent to 100 billion hydrogen bombs exploding? Although it loses four million tonnes of mass every second scientists estimate that the sun will last another five billion years. We can see 6000 stars from the earth with the naked eye; yet our sun is only one of approximately 200 billion stars in our galaxy the Milky Way; and there are at least 140 billion other galaxies.
Now that is awesome! God is awesome!
You are also quite amazing. You are made up of about a trillion cells. Your heart pumps the equivalent of 1800 gallons of blood per day. Your brain processes 100,000,000 pieces of data every second but you use far less electricity than a light bulb to do so. We can hear over 300,000 different tones. We can see approximately eight million colour differences. At the time of your conception one cell from your mother joined with one cell from your father to create one cell. That cell contained everything necessary to make you who you are today. That one cell contained your DNA. Scientists tell us that your DNA – the individual unique code that makes you who you are - is approximately three billion characters long. If I were to read out your DNA to describe you, reading out one character per second, it would take me 96 years without a rest, without sleep, to describe you using your individual DNA code. That is pretty awesome. God your creator is awesome!
The Bible says ‘since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse’ (Romans 1:20). No wonder Psalm 148 says this: ‘Praise him, sun and Moon. Praise him, all you shining stars.’
In his wonderful little book Matt Redman also talks about Wilson Bentley, also known as the ‘snowflake man’ born in the late 19th century. He coined the phrase ‘no two snowflakes are the same’. Bentley devoted nearly 50 years of his life to the study and photography of these ‘fragile jewels’. He was fascinated scientifically and artistically by snow crystals, collecting 5000 photographs and writing this: ‘under the microscope I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty… Every crystal was a masterpiece of design, and no one design was ever repeated’; yet another reminder of the wonders of the creator that we worship.
Jesus said, “True worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the father seeks.” To worship God in spirit and in truth is not to worship God in two different ways. They are not two separable characteristics of worship. The Bible says that God is spirit, and Jesus described himself as the truth. Worship is therefore God centred; and it is to be in spirit and in truth because worship is not confined to a particular place or time or location. Worship begins with God. Worship is our response to God. Worship is all about God.
For Jesus, his whole life was an act of worship, because it was dedicated to God. So for us, doing the ironing is worship when done with God at the centre. Our daily work is worship, whatever it is. We may not ‘enjoy’ our daily work, just like we may not ‘enjoy’ a Church service, but if it is done with God at the centre then it is worship. After all, who is worship for? Is it about what I get out of it, or is it about what we put into it in response to what God has put into us?
