That's somewhat of an exaggeration, but I found it a striking, challenging reminder that meeting with God in worship should be something which stirs us deeply. I hope I don't need to convince any who are Christians that a major part of the point of our lives on earth is that we should learn how to worship God. A.W. Tozer wrote, "We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God." (Christianity Today, Vol. 41, no. 5.) Indeed it would be true to the bible to say that the chief point of life is to worship God as part of the relationship of love we are here to develop with him. Worship is human response to a gracious God. It is in view of all that God has done for us and given to us that we respond to him in worship. Worship comes, as I'm sure you know, from the old English worth-ship. Its' about expressing what God is worth to us. Writing more than one hundred years ago, Alexander Paterson Smith gave this definition of worship: "To worship God is to make Him the supreme object of our esteem and delight, both in public, private, and secret." This should be what we are doing in every aspect of our lives, so that worship is central to our very being. So I hope what I say has application to all our life, although my remarks today primarily address our worship when we meet in Church.

The term 'worship' in the OT translates the Hebrew word meaning 'to bow down, prostrate oneself,' a posture indicating reverence and homage given to a lord, whether human or divine. There are several aspects to this in the way the OT instructs people to worship.

1. Service The concept of worship is expressed by the term 'serve.' Just as a servant is there to do his master's bidding, so God's people are encouraged to think of themselves as being here to do God's will. We should remember that we come to Church to worship, not primarily for our own benefit (though worship does do us great good), but to please God. "Most people think of the church as a drama," Dr. James Kennedy said, "with the minister as the chief actor, God as the prompter, and the laity as the critic. What is actually the case is that the congregation is the chief actor, the minister is the prompter, and God is the critic." I hope that most of you know me well enough to be sure that I want to lead our worship in such a way as to be helpful to as many of us as possible. With our wide range of backgrounds & expectations we cannot hope to please everyone all the time, but that must not actually be our chief aim. We are here to please God in what we do, and he looks at our hearts rather than at the outward side of our worship.

Do you come to worship, here or in private, or elsewhere, for what you can get out of it, or for what you put into it by way of serving God?

2. Sacrifice If you have tried to read the book of Leviticus I expect you have been rather put off by all the material in it about animal sacrifices and just what is & isn't acceptable to God. Thank God that Jesus has done away with all that, but it is all meant to be a reminder that true worship must be done in God's way, not according to our fancies, and that it must involve costly sacrifice on our part. St. Paul writes: "offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer." (Romans 12v1) It is not easy to make time each day to worship God, but that should be no surprise. And coming here to corporate worship you will often find a sacrifice - you could be doing other things, which might be more fun. The way it's done will not always suit you - music, words, atmosphere, etc. may not be to your taste (though we do try to offer a variety to help as many as possible). Instead of giving up though, how about seeing this as a sacrifice you can make to please God? Follow David's example in the bible, who said, "I will not offer to the Lord my God sacrifices that have cost me nothing." (2 Samuel 24:24)

3. Holiness Another off-putting aspect of Old Testament worship is all the emphasis on ritual purity. You mustn't attend worship if you've touched something ritually unclean, had a period, and so on. Again we can praise Jesus that he's abolished all that, but it's there to remind us that God is special, pure & holy and we mustn't come to him casually. The New Testament continues to insist on the importance of holiness in worship. St. Peter writes, "Be holy in all that you do, just as God who called you is holy. The scripture says, "Be holy because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:15) We ought to prepare ourselves for worship by asking God's forgiveness of anything bad we've done or good we've not done, in thought as well as deed. We should come to give. We should be expectant, believing that our worship is important and that God will meet with us. How special do we see times of worship & what's our attitude as we come to them?

4. Adoration An essential part of biblical worship is expressing appreciation of God for who he is. To adore is to regard with honour and deep affection. The NT word most used for worship is proskuneo, which literally means to "draw near to kiss". There is a place for intellectually stimulating worship, as some hymns & songs show, but there is also a place for songs which simply express a love for & appreciation of God, and we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to enter into this kind of response to God. Love in the bible is primarily about commitment, but affections are included. Learning to say "I love you" meaningfully to God is as important as in close human relationships.

5. Thanksgiving Thanking God for what he has done for us is vital to worship. This has a general dimension - his love in creation, in rescuing us in Jesus, his Spirit's work in us, and so on. It also has a personal element - what God has done for each of us today or this week - which we need to express. Gratitude is so important that the bible calls us to be thankful always. "Be joyful always, pray at all times, be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) Do you come to worship like that?

6. Donations made to God, sometimes by giving to those in need, are part of biblical worship too. The OT had rules about giving one tenth of everything to God, and the NT also looks for us to give to those in need and to provide for the needs of the Church so it can fulfil its mission. That's why St. Paul told the Corinthians, "Every Sunday each of you must put aside some money, in proportion to what you have earned, and save it up." (1 Corinthians 16:2)

7. Prayer, just talking to God about everything that matters to us, and sharing with him our needs and those of others, has always been part of worship. It shows that his is important enough to bring into everything, and honours him by looking to him to meet needs, which is an expression of faith & trust. Prayer in public worship will often concentrate on things of concern to us all, but one of the strengths of our Church is that we can draw of lots of different ways of praying as we are led by different members of our Church with their varied backgrounds.

8. Learning evidently played a part in bible worship too. People read from the scriptures and were taught from them, and in the NT era especially from the words of Jesus, as passed on by the apostles. That also shows what God is worth to us, since it's about conforming our lives to his standards and growing in our relationship with him. Do we come to worship expecting to learn & grow? In the early Church that included people being open to God to speak through them in prophecy - words inspired by God which have a particular, personal application & relevance.

So what do we offer here Sunday by Sunday? I put it to you that if everyone who came was a mature Christian the form of service, the sort of music and much else would be irrelevant because we'd have the right attitude which would turn whatever was offered to good account. Jesus reminded us, I his conversation with the woman at the well, that we must "worship in spirit and in truth". Good News Bible translates that: "God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is." (John 4v24) If we let the Holy Spirit inspire us we will always worship God appropriately. However many of us are not yet mature in this respect and need to be helped by worship being presented in a way that connects with our personality. That's why some like contemporary music & some traditional, some like written prayers to join in, others prefer the spontaneous. So we try to offer a mixture and a variety, and encourage each other to seek God's help in entering into what does not naturally appeal. Our Church Council is looking at whether a 2nd service might help us in all this, and if we don't see the way to work that out we'll need to continue to adjust & make positive compromises over our weekly services. I hope we will all seek God's help in being especially sensitive to those who are new to worship, or who find our ways strange, and that we'll do all we can to help them feel at home. I pray that the experience of each of us may endorse Archbishop William Temple's classic definition of worship: "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."