Chocolate, love and worship
1 August 2004 – Peter Brassington: "You've had chocolate before, you've heard of God's love and forgiveness before. It's easy to forget how wonderful the first taste can be..."
Peter invited the congregation to eat their favourite chocolate during his sermon.A true story: A tribe in Papua New Guinea were introduced to their first bar of chocolate. As one man tasted this new food for the first time all eyes turned to him.
"Is it good?" they asked.
He said: "I'm dying with the deliciousness of whatever this is."
"What's it taste like?" they asked.
"It's like... it's like... pig's liver!"
OK, so I imagine some of you can't see the connection. Pig was the best food in Papua New Guinea. The liver was the best of the best.
Later, when they heard the Bible read for the first time in their own language, someone said they were "dying with the deliciousness" of the gospel message.
You've had chocolate before, you've heard of God's love and forgiveness before. It's easy to forget how wonderful the first taste can be.
If I could, I'd be handing out some delicious fair-traded Maya Gold right now. I'd also talk about fair trade and about how the way we live our lives, and choose to spend our money can be part of our worship to God.
But I'm not going to talk about chocolate. It's a thing to be experienced rather than lectured about.
It's often used to say thank you, it's often used to say I love you, to say I've been thinking about you and I wanted to give you something. Like I said I'm not talking about chocolate, I'm talking about worship.
Our worship is an expression of gratitude and love. It's a thing to be experienced and responded to.
God loves the worship that comes from the heart as you are singing (or typing?), or just grinning from ear to ear as you realise how much God loves you. God also loves worship that comes from the heart when you look outside yourself and do something to help another human being.
Jesus said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And love your neighbour as yourself."
How are you going to express that love?
Peter Brassington is webservant for Wycliffe Bible Translators.
