Sunday Service - 4 Oct 1953

Worship is the acknowledgement of the ‘worth-ship’ of God with every part of our being. Such worship must be public as well as private, in fellowship with others, as well as in solitude. There are people who think that a person can be a good Christian even if he does not participate in public worship. ‘Why should I go to church? I can worship God at home equally well!’ Man’s acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty and holiness will be defective if it is normally offered only in an artificial separation from his fellowmen. In support of public worship I would like you to consider two things.

Though each of us is a distinct individual, now of us is self-sufficient. The individual needs fellowship with others in the process of being his own self and achieving true humanity. If in our everyday life we do need the fellowship and support of those around us for our own well-being, we do need them all the more at the supreme moment of worship. It is lack of humility that makes us shrink from joining others in corporate worship. True worship cannot co-exist with such failure in humility.

A Christian congregation is not a collection of individuals moved to worship, but a living cell within that organism, called by St. Paul, the Body of Christ. Those of us reading the BRF Notes will remember the portion for yesterday from 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 where St. Paul compares the Church , the Body of Christ, to the human body. As the human body with all its members should function as one whole, so nothing must destroy the harmony of the Body of Christ. As Christians we are members of one body - the Body of Christ - and the whole body must act together when it offers worship to God. Our Lord’s illustration was that of a vine. As Christians we are joined to one another and to Christ as the branches of the vine are joined to one another and the main tree.

When asked by the first disciples to teach them to pray, the Lord replied by giving them a prayer which begins “Our Father”. To use this prayer and yet be not willing to say it with others, will not be honouring to the author of the prayer. A proper and effective acknowledgement of God in worship cannot proceed from a man who believes that in things spiritual he has a duty to keep himself to himself. He must come down from his high horse and take his place with the multitude. True Christian worship should certainly be offered by every man in private, but it must also be offered in public, in association with the other members of the Body if it is to be true to its Christian character.