We've been thinking about worship this week on the podcast, and here's a question.

What have been your most memorable experiences of worship?

I imagine if this were a phone-in program, we could spend the rest of it listening

to one another giving very different stories about our memories of worship that has brought

us into the presence of God. For some of us, it might be the first time we were in a very large

gathering and listening to people praising God together.

For others of us, it might have been worship in a rural place, in a faraway country, with

Christians who had very little, but hearts full of praise.

And for some of us, it might be an occasion when we felt the density of worship in the singing,

or the power of the Word of God in the preaching, or the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ

in the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

No doubt each one of us has his or her own special memory.

But the thing that binds them together as we've been reflecting is that on those occasions

we have become conscious of the presence of the Lord with us.

He is promised always to be with us, but he's also promised to manifest himself to us as we respond

to him in love and in worship. Remember how Jesus says in the farewell discourse that when

we come to him in obedience and trust and love, through the Holy Spirit, the Father and the

Son come to us and make our home with us.

And when we are engaged in that kind of worship, I think we feel at last we have come home.

There's a very interesting statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith when it speaks about

the sacraments, but I think it applies to our worship in general.

It says that the efficacy, the power, the influence, the impact of the sacraments is not tied

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