Word and the sacra­ment of Lord's Supper are both important elements that belong to the worship service. As we deal with these elements, the question arises, what is worship? It is critical that we have a good and proper understanding about worship. This is an area on which I like to spend some time with those who are preparing to publicly profess their faith. It is vital that they understand what worship is, especially in light of that which passes as worship in many North American churches today.

In our culture the stress in worship tends to be on the involvement of the people. What we see in this trend is that the Lord God becomes passive and the people active. God is largely present only in the capacity of a spectator who enjoys the activities of His people. While the congregation does have an active role to play in worship, yet it should never be at the expense of the central role that the Lord must have. If the Lord does not have the central role in our worship services, then we will fall into the pagan practice in which they offer an abun­dance of gifts in order to appease their gods and make them happy with the hope that they might receive his favour.

Worship is not about putting on a good show for God and it certainly is not about earning or maintaining God's favour. When office bearers admonish members who do not faithfully attend the worship services, a very common response is that we can serve the Lord in other ways as well, as if there are different ways in which we can make God happy. The common misconception is that worship is what people do for God. The worship part of the service is thought to be the singing and praying. This misconception may be reinforced by 'Praise and Worship' evenings in which the emphasis is on singing praises to God.

It is a beautiful thing when God's people come together to sing praise and give glory to God, but that is not the whole of worship. In fact the main focus of worship is not even about what we are doing, but it is always about what God is doing to and in us. The Lord God is not a spectator in the worship service, but He is an active participant. He calls His congregation to worship because He has wonderful gifts for His people. Worship is not just about giving praise to the Lord, but it is foremost God's means by which He gives his gifts to his people to which we respond in thankfulness.

The Lord has given to His church the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments as the means of grace. The true and proper worship of the church is dependent on the preaching and the sacraments for these are the means by which the Lord distributes the gift of grace.

Hughes Oliphant Old writes,

When in the worship of the church, the Word is truly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, then God calls, teaches, and leads his people into a new way of life.

When we come to worship the Lord, we come to receive from Him the gift of salvation through the preaching of the Word and the sacraments.

What makes the preaching a relevant and living word is that the Lord God is speaking to His people about what He is doing for them. True preaching proclaims to the congregation the work that God is doing for them. The preacher is not a historian who tells the congregation about historical events in the past. If the preaching is simply a history lesson about what God had done in the past, it becomes a dead word. The living preaching of the gospel relates how the Lord, who has acted in the past, is now acting in the lives of God's congrega­tion today.

The apostle Paul in Eph. 3:14f prays for the church as the family of God.

His prayer in vs. 18 is that God's children, 'may have power ... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.'

The preaching is the means by which the Lord speaks to his people about His great love for them in Christ Jesus. The worship of God must always begin with the revelation of God's great and mighty deeds of redemption in Jesus Christ for his people. It is through the preaching that the congregation must learn to stand in awe at the great and mighty deeds Jesus Christ has done for them on cross.

Paul's prayer to the Lord is that the Lord may make the preaching of the gospel so effective that the congregation may more and more learn the height and depth and breadth of Christ's love for his people. Paul also adds in this prayer that the congregation may "know this love that surpasses knowledge." The knowledge that Paul prays for is something that goes way beyond our human comprehension. It goes beyond anything that can be grasped intellectually. That is why Paul prays that the Lord may grant his people the power to grasp the great extent of Christ's love. This is not just something to be grasped intellectually, but something that God's people are to experience in their daily lives.

Therefore the preaching is used by the Lord to help his people grasp his love and care for them in the daily experiences of life. In time of sorrow and grief at the death of a loved one, God's people receive inexplicable comfort from the word that proclaims the love of God. God's people who are enduring anxious times are inexplicably encouraged when the great love and care of the Father in heaven is proclaimed to them. It is the great power of the gospel at work in the heart of God's children.

Therefore the preacher must not only have an eye for what the Lord has done in the past, but also an eye for what the Lord is doing for His people today. The listener must always be in view, but how does the preacher determine the needs of his listener? It is the Lord who identifies the needs of his people in his Word and who speaks to those needs. Often the needs that the listener thinks he or she has are not the needs that the Lord identifies. Therefore the preacher needs to carefully examine the text to understand what the Lord identifies as the needs of his people. The better the preacher understands what the Lord or what Christ is doing for his people in the text, the better he will be able to identify and address the needs of the congregation. The Lord, who provided for his people in the past, continues to provide for his people in the present.

The sacraments are also given by the Lord as the means by which he gives his gift of grace to us. Here too we need to keep in mind that the sacraments are not historical reenactments of past events, but that they are the means by which the Lord grants his grace to his congregation today. Baptism does not just speak about the past, but it reveals that Christ's past sacrifice now washes away all our sins. At the Lord's Supper the Lord gives to us his body and blood once offered on the cross for the complete forgiveness of all our sins.

And therefore true worship is not first of all about what we are doing, but about what God is doing to and in us. Worship always begins with God. In true worship, the Lord is active in giving his gift of grace to us through the use of the gospel and the sacraments.

Now we need to keep in mind that worship is not one sided. When we come and worship together, God is present with his congregation. In worship, the Lord God is active as well as his people. There­fore we must never lose sight of the covenantal aspect of worship in which the Lord God grants to us his grace in Jesus Christ and the congrega­tion responds with thanksgiving and praise. In Eph. 4:12 Paul says that the Lord gave leaders (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) to his church, "to prepare (equip) God's people for works of service."

Paul understood that Christ gives leaders to his church in order that through their preaching and teaching the members may be equipped for works of service. Therefore in the worship service the Lord equips his people through the preaching and the use of the sacraments for the work of service. In worship God and man are both active, but it is God who equips his people with His grace in order that we may respond with thanksgiving and praise. Therefore in the worship service the congregation responds to the preaching and to the sacraments with songs of praise and words of prayer. Service is always a response to what God is doing in the life of his people.

Now it is clear from the context of Eph. 4:12 that Paul has much more in mind than simply the worship service. All of life must be worship. Here he is speaking specifically about the fact that through the preaching and teaching of the leaders in the church, the members of God's family are being equipped to serve one another. Therefore worship cannot be confined to just the worship service, for the gospel equips us to encourage and help all the members of the household of faith. Although Paul does not have the wider community in mind here, yet the Lord also equips us to serve our fellow man in the community.

The true worship of God is therefore important for all of life. From the weekly worship service flows our daily service to God and our neighbour. When the Lord pours out his grace in Jesus Christ in the worship service, there the Lord transforms the heart and life of His people. Where the Lord is transform­ing the hearts of God's people, there you will find a response of thanksgiving that reveals itself in living service to the Lord and the neighbour.