"Finding the Heart’s True Home"
Luke 10:38-42; Luke 7:37-38; Acts 16:22-26
Theme: Worship
Aim: To teach what worship really is and encourage the congregation to BE worshippers.
Introduction
What is worship? Is it singing Christian songs on a Sunday? Is it singing Christian songs any other day? Is it singing old songs? Or is it singing new songs? Is it just singing psalms? Is it about singing at all? Is it about rituals or about good feelings inside? You know, it’s not really about any of those things. OK, we might do some of those things when we worship, we sing every Sunday, but worship is really about us and God, about how we express our relationship with Him. Worship is not something we do for our own benefit, when we worship, it is not even for anyone else’s benefit, it is for one person and one person alone……GOD! As we are about to find out, worship is not something we just do on a Sunday, worship is a way of life, it is something we should be living out daily. Lets look at the passages we read earlier and see what we can learn about worship and about being worshippers.
1. Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha
Here we have Jesus visiting some very good friends, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. We learn something very important from Mary and Martha about what God, what Jesus attitude to worship is. You see, Martha was one of those women who always wanted everything to be right, especially when someone like Jesus was around…she was very busy getting everything prepared in the kitchen because the Master had dropped by. I can imagine her in her kitchen, working away hard in the kitchen, all the while she sees her sister Mary just sitting by Jesus, listening to him, talking to him, spending time with him. I can imagine all the things she would have been saying under her breath until she gets so frustrated that she decides that she would get Jesus to tell her off for just sitting around talking to him when all the work was to be done.
Now, I am sure some of you are thinking, well, Martha is right, wee Mary should have been in the kitchen getting the dinner ready. She should get off her bottom and get working. And that just shows you how much we are like Martha.
But what does Jesus say? Well, he didn’t condemn Martha for doing the things that needed to be done, far from it, but he did tell her off for presuming that the way Mary was serving Jesus was not the right way. In fact, he says that Mary had chosen the better service didn’t he?
Mary and Martha both loved Jesus very much, but Martha didn’t realise that in her desire to serve Jesus, she was actually neglecting him. She was so busy at doing things for Him, that she had no time to spend with him. I know for a fact that there are indeed many Marthas in this corps.
You see, if we spend so much time doing things for Jesus, doing things for the Lord, but never spend time getting to know him, telling him how much we love him, then we are doing ourselves and Jesus out of the privilege of knowing him intimately.
Mary had her priorities right. Yes, she did know that Jesus would need served, but she got things in the right order. She spent time loving him, talking to him.
Friends, we need to spend time with God, alone, talking to him, telling him how much we love him. That might mean just talking, maybe even singing to him, but we need to spend that time. As Jesus said about Mary, the time spent in praising God is not wasted time, it is not laziness, it is what God expects and it will be beneficial to her life.
So, straight away, we are learning that worship is personal. It is something we can do alone with Jesus, it is about telling God we love him, and we can see that worshipping God is a priority, it is even more important that doing things FOR God.
That was Mary and Martha, lets look at our next example.
2. Luke 7:37-38 The Sinful Woman
Those of you who were here two weeks ago will recognise the woman in the passage, you will remember about how much she was forgiven. Now, I suppose you are wondering, what has she got to do with worship? Well we can learn something very important from her too.
When she was there with Jesus, there is one thing that stand out about the way she worshipped….it cost her a lot. Yes, it cost her financially, because she bought the jar and the oil, but more than that, it cost her herself.
She lowered herself didn’t she? She really made herself vulnerable in from of all those people. As we said a few weeks ago, she really did have a very deep love for Jesus, and it showed. It showed in every action.
You will remember me telling you that the word "worship", means "to kiss." Well, here we see in this woman, what it really means to worship. Friends, if you leave here every Sunday without having kissed Jesus, then you have wasted your time really. But, can I throw a word of warning in, you may remember that when Judas betrayed Jesus….how did he do it? By a kiss! The one Judas kissed on the cheek was that one that the Romans were to carry away. Our worship must be true and sincere, from the heart, if it is not that, then it is just as bad as the kiss that sent him to his death.
So, we can learn from the forgiven woman that worship is giving of our selves, laying our lives before God in praise and thankfulness for what he has done for us. The apostle Paul urges us to offer our bodies and lives as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship, Paul tells us. Only when we lay down our lives in worship to God, are we transformed into what he wants us to be. Why? Because God in his love and mercy gave his son for us, we should give ourselves to him.
We are really learning that worship is nothing to do with just singing songs on a Sunday aren’t we? Its about how we live our lives, it is our heart’s true home. But lets look at our final example from the Bible.
3. Acts 16:22-26: Paul and Silas in prison
Now, here is a powerful story which really shows us how important worship is, how powerful God is, and how worship changes us. Paul and Silas had been going about the business of telling people about Jesus, and as was common in those days, they got slung in jail. Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, placed in stocks and left there in the cold prison inner cell. Now, you and I, maybe put in that situation, would have a good old cry to ourselves. We would be terrified even.
But what are Paul and Silas up to? They start singing praises to God! You know there are situations in all of our lives, where the last thing we think of is praising God and telling God we still love him. Paul an Silas were singing because they were in prison for the sake of Jesus, and Jesus said himself that Christians were to give thanks when persecuted, it only shows that they are living lives that their master lived.
But really, how many of us have the experience of perhaps feeling a bit down in the dumps, feeling as if God is a thousand miles away from our situation? What do we do? Well, most of us certainly don’t start praising God for his love and goodness.
But even more amazing, is that God recognised their faithfulness and caused a miraculous state of events which led to Paul and Silas being set free! But in the same way Paul and Silas were in chains, we can also find ourselves in chains. Many people are caught up in chains of addiction to all sorts of things, we are chained to bad habits, to sin, to circumstances. But God has the power to break the chains that bind us! Even the chains of depression, of hurts from the past.
From my own experience, I can truly say there have been times when, during worship, God has really healed my heart. I grew up in a broken home, like many children do these days, I had many difficulties with bullies at school right up to when I was 16. But you know, God is a healer of broken hearts. I remember one time when I had just become a Christian, I had gone to a gathering for young people. We were having a time of singing and worship and the next thing I knew tears started to roll down my cheeks…not of sadness, but because I knew tangibly that God was present and was breaking and healing all those negative chains which hung around my neck. My life changed a lot after that evening.
Several years later, infact about 3 years ago, after my gran died I, for many months I carried an extremely heavy heart, severe feelings of grief and loss. To the extent that I changed very much, and I am sure Tracy would tell you how much I had changed for the worse after my gran died. If I am honest, I was extremely depressed. But again, in the darkness of grief, God broke though and transformed me again when I opened my self up and worshipped again. It is actually only in the last year, some two/three years after, that I have let God break the chain that was hanging round my neck. Of course, I still miss my gran, she was like my mother, she was and is very dear to me, but I no longer live under the burden that I did in earlier days. My chains fell off, my heart was free to be what Christ had meant it to be. Jesus said it was for freedom Christ set us free, not to be burdened.
Paul an Silas, I think if they never praised God, if they never kissed Jesus that night, if they had no faith, then God would not have recognised their plea, they would have stayed there in their darkness.
Conclusion
Friends, worship is not about singing songs.
It is about opening ourselves up to God. It is about laying our lives on God’s altar and expressing our love for him like the woman who annointed him with oil.
It is about spending time with Jesus, getting to know him and expressing our love to him, like Mary did. It is also about working for the Lord, but doing things for Him must always come second to knowing Him.
It is about living the kind of life that is focussed on God and praising him, whatever our circumstances like Paul and Silas.
It is not for the benefit of others, or even ourselves, but it is our love expressed to God. But the thing is, even we try to give something to God, our worship, it is still us who ends up getting all the blessings. What a God we serve! When we open ourselves up to God, although we are trying to give to him, he still chooses to meet with us and do things for us while we worship.
Lets approach God now as we worship. Lets lay our lives before him, adore him…..open ourselves up to the Master.
