Worship is such an essential part of what we do in a church service but I’m wondering if we need to just be reminded from time to time about what this is about. I want to take us through some thoughts about what we do so that when we arrive at the end of the sermon, we will be ready to participate in a prayer of confession and then Daniel and his team will lead us in some songs.

But before we go any further I think it’s important that we try and work out some of priorities around the idea of worship.

In the early church they had to meet in homes, in secret and hidden away from the authorities, since being a Christian was actually illegal for a couple of hundred years. You were likely to get thrown into the middle of the gladiatorial games or fed to lions, or burned at the stake. All the things that we’re ironically known for over the last few centuries.

They used to use tagging to tell people where they were meeting. It was the sign of a fish with the Greek word Ichthus written inside it. It means fish. But some think that it may in fact be an anagram, which translates to Jesus Christ, God’s son Saviour. At any rate, they were meeting in secret.

Why did they risk death to meet? Would you? How would persecution alter the way we do church services?

It’s a big question, but it strips it all right down.

Worship is what humans do. We are created with this insatiable urge within us to worship. Whether you are a Christian or not, this is self-evident. We all want to admire something, be inspired by something, point to something greater than ourselves. If you’re a atheist scientist you will often point to the wonder of the universe, be it string theory to the simple collision of galaxies…because it just doesn’t make sense to not be in awe of its magnitude.

We all seem to need to bow to something greater than ourselves. I think it’s the only way that we can cope with our cosmic insignificance.

As Christians we believe that our God created all this, that God is bigger than the universe, but not only that, animates and sustains it through his being. We believe that this universe is subservient to God’s power and bears witness to his greatness. So we believe in something quite extraordinary.

This was driven home to me earlier this year when I was reading about Isaiah’s call to be a prophet. I’ve read it before but it needs to be read again. This is how I want us to consider the idea of worshipping our God. Isaiah 6:1b–8:

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

It’s a staggering vision that provides an essential framework for us.

We could say that it works because it is the call of God on us to worship Him. Romans 12:1:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

So let’s have a look at this vision from Isaiah.

First we have the vision of the throne-room, a vast cavern with an enormous ceiling perhaps, and somewhere God was sitting there on his throne. We see the size of God, the magnificence of God, the holiness of God. And the scale is emphasized by the simple words, that “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” A trifling thing that we think nothing twice about has taken over an area the size of the temple. Now in Isaiah’s day there would have been few structures as big as the temple in Jerusalem, so really what he’s getting at is that it’s big. God is big.

Crazy looking angelic beings were attending to him. Flying around and singing of God’s holiness and glory. It’s right to do this. God is holy, separate and perfect. And his glory? The earth is filled with it…testimony to his greatness, evidence for his power.

The whole place shook with the booming voices. They weren’t being pansies about this, they were singing with all of their being. And to top it all off, smoke filled the room.

It’s an enormous thing to have beheld. And for Isaiah his natural response is to recoil.

When we stand this close to the light the darkness no longer conceals our blemish. There are no more secrets. The holiness of God will pierce through our shells and masks, and cut us to our heart. The state that we are in, not the sum of all the bad things we’ve done like Santa has, but the state which we are in will be exposed and that state is the state of being in sin.

I imagine he’s got his arm shielding his eyes as he says this, that his body is recoiled and trembling, that his being is trying to find a corner of the room to scurry to. And he plucks up the courage to say something here. He dares to speak in his defense, not of his state of sin, but in the fact that he wants to justify how he could be here.

His being there is at odds with what that throne room is. It’s holy he is not.

And out of this disconnect comes his cry, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I come from a people with unclean lips. He acknowledges the disconnect he feels and scrambles in fear. The Hebrew tradition is that if you see the face of God you die. You may recall the story of Moses up Mt Horeb when he’s receiving the ten commandments being able to only see the back of God.

So Isaiah has seen God’s face and he is afraid.

Here’s the surprising thing. One of the seraphs, one of those crazy angelic beings, comes along with a hot coal from the holy altar and touches the lips of Isaiah.

It is not forgotten that he is a man of unclean lips. This is not forgotten, but through the refining fire of the altar his lips are made clean, but more than that, it’s as though he had never done it.

It says that the guilt had departed, his sin was blotted out, the reason for his disconnect was erased and he was able to stay. But it would have hurt. It was not just waving a wand, it was a painful and costly symbol.

To kiss a hot coal.

Now lets just stop here for a second and think about what we normally do when we come here to worship God.

I’ve been reading a book by a guy called Marcus Borg and he makes a comment where he believes that worshipping God is one of the most culturally subversive acts a person can do.

And it’s true. Few out there see the point in what we’re doing here. Few out there thinks there’s anything beneficial to this. And there’s a sense where they are right about that.

This is actually meaningless if it is such a departure from the rest of our lives. Remember how it was Isaiah’s assessment of his life in his normal spaces that compromised him. He knew he was unclean. And he acknowledged that and God made it right again.

I think that it is right to worship God when we are feeling disconnected from him, and that it is also right that we acknowledge that disconnection. Which is why confession is such an important aspect to worship.

There are several things that happen when we worship God:

1) We confess our state of sin

2) We are made right with God, we acknowledge the wonder of this grace

3) We are sustained to fulfill God’s call on our life

4) We are making a statement against the flow of our earthly desires

Niggles I have about many forms of worship.

1) there are empty words / we just throw ourselves into it without confession

2) we want to experience something as if it’s a transaction and in the process limit worship to this time at the church service

3) we might for a moment be repentant and fool ourselves into thinking that’s enough

4) there’s little connection between the words we use here and the lives we lead out there.

It’s an act of grace that we can do this!