"The purpose of worship"

March 24, 2002 Palm/Passion Sunday

A sermon by Dean Keith Joyce

Our focus is on God, to encounter Him and to know Him. The purpose of our corporate worship is the worship of God, not to attract people to our particular congregation. While what happens in any given service can affect people's reactions to that congregation, there is a more important work going on than attracting others.

When it comes to attracting others, it's simple, in theory - people attract people. My challenge to us is to become the friendliest congregation in Fredericton. Why? So that people can come to know God through the life and ministry of this congregation, and therefore worship God here in this Cathedral. You'll notice, in this particular instance, that I have put worship as the end result of people entering into a relationship with God.

There is a popular misconception that we are to evangelise through our worship services. Worship is for worship. Evangelism is done by people with friends, colleagues, neighbours and other acquaintances. The danger of trying to use worship for outreach is that we can end up sacrificing worship for having an event we hope appeals to the unbeliever. Part of the risk is we end up with something quite bland for the worship of God. In the name of outreach we remove the mystery, the awe that is to be part of Christian worship. What might be happening, in those cases, without us knowing it, is that we really are trying to make our particular brand of worship appealing to others so that they are attracted to us.

But the bottom line is that when we gather in this place for a service, we are here for one thing only - to worship God with everything in us out of the love we have for God, a love given to Him with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength.

Granted, I've put it starkly. Times of worship can in fact draw people to God. Worship can have a profound impact on people by opening their hearts to God's presence and raising the question of what this is all about. The sense of awe and of the unknown, yes, of that which is not understood immediately, and of love given and received, will hopefully be such that guests, in whatever state of mind or heart, will want to know about the heart of this activity of worship. I'm simply saying that outreach is not the purpose of worship.

Last week I stressed that we come to "give" and not to "get." While that is true, we often can be in a personal situation in life where all we can do is barely get here. We can be in such great need that all we can think of is being here simply to receive whatever strength or encouragement we can from a time of worship. And that is perfectly fine. What we unconsciously are doing is giving to God our sorrow or our pain or our discouragement so that He can work His strengthening and healing in our lives. Many a time I have encouraged an individual to simply come and be here and, receive of God, because that is what he or she needed at that time.

Who then, gathers for worship? It's "the church," as "God's house," as that "holy temple," as that "dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit" which comes together to worship God. This is seen in Ephesians where we read, that in Christ "the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." (from Ephesians 2:21-22)

Peter's first epistle tells us that we, "like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (from 1 Peter 2:5)

So you see, this Cathedral building is where "God's house," God's "holy temple," gathers to worship the God who is in its midst. It gathers to be more deeply conscious of the presence of God, that presence in which its members live every breathing moment of their lives. In worship we do not enter into the presence of God. It's hard to enter into that which one is already in! Worship heightens our awareness of that very presence. It draws us to lift up our hearts and voices and minds and wills (and our bodies, in standing, and in lifting up one's hands, in crossing oneself) to adore and glorify God alone.

Deep worship comes out of lives deeply in tune with God throughout one's day to day world. This week, Holy Week, is the best week of all weeks because we are greatly helped to be aware of our God on a daily basis through the many acts of worship we will enter into. Worship is never simply a Sunday, or Wednesday or whatever occasion activity. Whenever we gather to worship, we come to encounter the living God, to love Him and praise Him and to be completely taken up with Him.

We offer God our very selves, our lives and hearts, even our bodies all to be a living sacrifice of praise to Him. That's why worship is the disciple's most important activity - everything else flows from the worship of our great and holy God. That's why the disciple does not "go to church." Rather the disciple is part of the church that comes to worship God out of the love he or she has for God! We come, each day of Holy Week for instance, to offer our love for Jesus Christ, in and because of all that he went through that week so long ago. As He offered Himself as the sacrifice for us all, we are, "by the mercies of God, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship." (from Romans 12:1)

As I close, I want to say that there are many other aspects of worship which I have not touched on. Today and last week I have been trying to orient us in our fundamental purpose and reason for worship. Future sermons will deal with some of the other matters of corporate worship.

I want to end with another definition of worship which will be particularly helpful in this Holy Week. We go through it with our Lord Jesus Christ, offering Him our praise and thanksgiving, in a quiet and humble awe, with, at times, tears of both joy and sorrow for what He endured for our sakes and for the sake of the world. As we go through this week, we have ever before us the image of Jesus on the cross and the empty tomb. It's not the empty cross, it's Jesus on the cross that's significant, along with the empty tomb. These two things sum up and contain the whole of God's love and the fullness of Christ's work, which is the good news of the gospel.

So, in closing, A.W. Tozer asks the question and then answers it:

"What is worship? Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Art in Heaven." (A.W. Tozer, quoted in D.J. Fant, A.W. Tozer, Christian Publications, 1964, p. 90)

Amen.