When you think about Heaven, what is most attractive to you? Are you longing to see your departed loved ones again? Are you looking forward to an end to physical pain and sickness? John certainly had good reason to want an end to the fears and frustrations of this wicked world, confined as he was on an island because of his faithfulness to the gospel.

But when he got a glimpse of heaven none of those things were what he noticed first. Instead, he encountered something very similar to what Ezekiel saw in chapter 1 of his prophecy (Ezekiel 1:4-28): John saw God. It was God who filled all of his senses, even if he really couldn’t capture that experience in words.

Moreover, John realized that God was the center of everyone else’s attention too. The impossibly powerful and glorious six-winged creatures around God’s throne said only one thing all day and every day forever and ever: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (4:8)

Likewise, John saw the twenty-four elders, who represent the Church in both the Old and New Testaments, falling down before God and worshipping Him. Far from reveling in the comfort and peace and safety of Heaven, John says that they cast their crowns before God, wanting Him alone to receive all the glory and honor (4:10-11). In short, the sole business of Heaven is worship, and heavenly worship is focused completely on God.

So, how should John’s amazing vision effect the way that we worship God here on earth? Should we really be so concerned about how much we like the music? Should we insist that we “get something” out of worship, or that the experience appeal to our own reason or feelings? Should we cling to worship practices because they are traditional, or reject them out of hand for the same reason?

Or, like those in Heaven, should we be solely concerned with God, with what He wants, with what will bring Him glory and honor? After all, John’s vision makes clear that worship is for God, not for us.

Revelation 4:1-11 (ESV)

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.
3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.
4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.
5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God,
6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind:
7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight.
8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever,
10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, 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.”