At St Simon’s last Sunday the sermon was looking at worship. What is it? Why do we do it? How? You get the idea. I’m sure I’d be forgiven for starting to switch off at another sermon on worship. This is, of course, a very important subject but having spent a number of years in a very charismatic church I have herd many, very similar, sermons on the subject. This one however, offered something new to think about.

The meaning of worship

Often the meaning to what worship is is lost in the excitement of praise. Many Christians would not be able to give you a definition that did not involve praise (or at very least singing) but worship in the Bible is much more than this. In fact praise and worship are actually two very distinct things. The meaning of the word worship, I am reliable informed, is ‘to come forward and kiss’. The implication is that this is an intimate action which can only take place in the context of a relationship. I’ve heard it said many times before that worship is what we do in our daily lives, not what we do on a Sunday morning, and while I had an understanding of that, how it practically worked out, I was always a little confused about. This however puts worship firmly in the context of our relationship with God. We are worshiping Him when we get to the point of coming forward to kiss our Lord.

Worship a progressive activity?

Michael Piper, the guest preacher as the vicar is on holiday, raised the possibility of worship being a progressive activity. How often do we turn up to a church meeting and just expect the worship leader to take us to a place of intimacy with God? If worship is about intimate relationship then this is a big ask. It was suggested that Psalm 100 gives us something of an idea of how this progression ‘works’.

The Psalmist is using the temple as his picture. The temple was the place to meet with God. In the Old Testament the place where this level of intimacy was possible was the temple. When we enter the temple, before we get as far as the holy place where we can worship God, we need to go through the gate. The Psalm suggests that we need to enter the gates with thanksgiving. Basically we need to be thankful for all that God has done for us. Nobody in our rich western world can be short of things to say thank you for, whatever their circumstances.

From the gates we move on to enter the courts. It’s suggested that we enter the courts with praise. So we need to praise God for who He is; not what He has done but who He is. This is something that most of us are not used to. We need to think, if all of our blessings were taken away what would be left? God would still be God and that is where we can start to think about what praise is all about.

To stretch the metaphor beyond the Psalm, before we reach the Holy Place of worship we pass by the alter of sacrifice and repentance. We get cleaned up, laying our wrongs at the foot of the cross. Only then have we reached the Holy place where worship takes place.

Pressure off the worship leader

This progression is an interesting idea and one I need to give a little more thought too. But how many of us can say that when we enter the doors of our Churches we do so with thanksgiving in our hearts? As we walk across the reception area, past the army of welcomes, can we say we are full of praise for who God is? As we seek out our favorite pew (or comfy bean bag depending on how cool your church is) can we say we have clean hands and pure lips? Or do we just stroll up to the worship leader and demand they let us be intimate with our God?

Its one to ponder. If worship does indeed flow out of our lives, only when we have the other components right can we come forward to kiss our maker.