"Holy! Holy! Holy!"

What is worship?

What’s the point in worship?

Why do we worship?

I spent a lot of this week going over Revelation chapter four and asking “how on earth am I supposed to preach on this?” Because this is a complicated passage with a lot going on and every line seems to be symbolic of something interesting but every commentary I looked at seemed to have a different idea of what that something is.

But ultimately, I realised, behind all the symbols and images this is a passage about worship.

But before we get there, let’s look at exactly what’s happening here. John has just finished recieving a series of letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, and now he is to receive a vision of things to come. In this vision he’s taken in to heaven. And that’s a familiar concept when it comes to prophets, because the great old testament prophets Isaiah and Exekiel also had visions in which they saw God on his throne.

And notice by the way that in front of the throne are seven torches which represents the seven spirits of God - and if you remember last week, we saw that this represents the perfection of God’s spirit. You might also notice that there seems to be no representation of the Son here - he’s going to show up in the next passage but for now we only see two members of the trinity.

And there are four living creatures and there are twenty-four elders around the throne, and day and night they're worshipping the one upon the throne. And as we look at their worship, we see three things.

First, we see that

Worship is God-centered

The four living creatures proclaim

Revelation 4:8 NRSV

“Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”

And they do so day and night.

They’re singing this praise constantly.

So we see that in God’s creation, there is no time that God is not being worshipped.

And this worship is entirely focussed on God.

And it focusses on God in three ways.

Holy! Holy! Holy: This word holy literally means “set apart”, and God is set apart from the whole of creation because He’s the creator.

And he’s set apart from the whole of creation because He’s perfect in morality and in justice and in all that He does - He’s the one who is without sin and by whom we know what is good and what is wrong.

And he’s set apart from creation because He alone is worthy of worship.

Lord God Almighty: God is all-powerful. There is nothing that He cannot do. With a word He created everything that is. He set up nations and kingdoms and can destroy them as easily.

Who was and is and is to come: God is, from eternity to eternity. He’s the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

And in emphasising these aspects of God, John is giving a message of comfort: because remember this message is being delivered to a church that’s dealing with oppressive rulers and in particular the cult of the Emperor, which gave the ruler of Rome the status of a god.

And John is telling us, God is above those rulers. And that message is equally relevant elsewhere.

Because it’s reminding us that rulers are human, and they’re not holy. They’re sinful and fallible and a part of creation.

But God is holy.

And it’s reminding us that rulers are limited in their power: they may command governments and armies and systems of power, but there are limits.

But God is all-powerful

And it’s reminding us that rulers are mortal, they were born and they will die.

But God is eternal.

And so we know that our God is above and beyond earthly rulers, and He is in control of all things, and we can be comforted to know that He will ensure in his perfect righteousness that ultimately what is good will prevail.

And every time the living creatures sing their praise - and again, they’re doing so ceaselessly and constantly, the elders fall before their thrones and cast their crowns and they also sing:

Revelation 4:11 NRSV

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

And we see that BECAUSE God created all things, and BECAUSE it is by God’s will that all things existed and where created, THEREFORE God is worthy to receive glory and honour and power.

It is BECAUSE God is the creator that God is to be worshipped.

And in the same way, it stands to reason that those who did not create all things are NOT worthy of worship.

They’re just not.

No matter how powerful they may seem.

They didn’t create all things.

So worship is God-centered. But whilst it is centered on God it is also the case that

Worship is for all of creation

Which is to say that all of creation should worship God. Let’s take a closer look at who was doing the worshipping in this passage.

First, we have the four living creatures.

Revelation 4:7 NRSV

the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle.

And there are a lot of ways that this can be understood - we can see that they aren’t literally a lion, an ox, a human, and an eagle because they also all have six wings and are covered in eyes, yet John draws attention to their being like these things. And this seems to be calling back to Ezekiel’s vision in which he saw six seraphim surrounding the throne, with additional details being added to them.

In the early church, it was very quickly noticed that these four creatures had particular attributes which were thought to correspond to the themes found in the four gospels - although there was a fair amount of disagreement on which beast represented which gospel - and because of that you’ll often see those creatures representing the gospel writers on stained-glass windows. But I have to wonder if that’s reading too much into it. Because in a more general sense these living creatures seem to simply show categories: the lion represents the predatory animals, the the ox represents the domesticated, the human of course is humanity, and the eagle represents the bird. We can say that they’re representative of the creatures one earth, and combining them with the motifs of the seraphim we then see that John is depicting all of created life - that on earth and that on heaven - coming together to worship God.

And then we have the twenty-four elders.

Revelation 4:4 NRSV

Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads.

Again this is a difficult passage to understand and there are many possibilities suggested, but I think what’s most likely here is that these elders represent the people of God. There are twenty-four of them, probably to represent the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles - in other words they’re there to represent god’s covenant people in the old and new covenants.

They’re the church.

So what these two groups together are showing us is that all of creation is to worship God, and that the church holds a particular role in that worship.

And we see that role emphasised in today’s scripture reading, where Christ says that the Father has given Him

John 17:2–3 NRSV

authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Listen to that again.

John 17:2–3 NRSV

this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Christ gives eternal life to all whom the Father has given him - in other words to the church - and eternal life is that we may know the one true God.

And in knowing the one true God we know that He alone is worthy to recieve glory and honour and power as befits the creator of all things.

See how that works? Because we belong to Christ we receive eternal life, and eternal life is to know Christ and to know the Father and to know God is to be called to worship God.

And the main reason that we worship God -that all creation worships God- is that

Worship Glorifies God

We see this in the gospel reading, where Christ states that his entire ministry has been about glorifying the father. “I glorify you one earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do”, he says. But he also notes that he had glory in the father’s presence before the world existed, and asks that the father glorify the son so that the son may glorify the father. And there’s an acknowledgment of Christ’s divinity here as he acknowledges his sharing in the father’s glory from the start.

And at this point I want to go step back to Revelation because there’s something worth noting: as I mentioned before, John’s vision of the Throne harks back to similar visions by Isaiah and Exekiel. But there’s a major difference: when the Hebrew prophets saw the Lord on his throne they were filled with fear, afraid that they would die because they were so unworthy to see God. But we don’t see any such reaction from John. Because John had already met God face to face in the man Jesus Christ, and because he knew that thanks to Christ’s atoning sacrifice we can see God and enter His presence without fear. If eternal life is to know the true God then that includes being in the presence of the True god.

Now returning to the gospel, look at the implication here: if all that Christ has done in his ministry is with the aim of glorifying the father,

And if a part of that ministry is being given authority over all people so that we who have been given to him may have eternal life,

Then we are saved from our sins unto eternal life that God may be glorifed.

And if eternal life is to know God, and in knowing God we are called to worship him day and night ceaslessly

Then to worship God is to bring Him glory.

So then a question is raised: is our worship glorifying God? If wwe are called to know God and to join with all creation in worshipping him, are we doing so? And I’m not just talking about Sunday mornings, because if worship for God is to be ceaseless and without end then we should be worshipping God in out everyday lives.

And what that means is we should be glorifying God in our everyday lives: in our work and in our social activities and in our liesure time, are our actions glorifying God? Are they pleasing to Him? When others see us, is God’s glory reflected in our lives so that they recognise that there is something special in Christ and want to know more?

That is the challenge that John’s vision brings to us today.