Living a Life of Worship // Worship as a Way of Life, Part 2

Sometimes we keep our faith and our day-to-day lives in separate boxes. But it turns out that "worship" is something that brings them back together again. Worship does just happen once a week when we sing a few songs. Worship as things turn out, was always meant to be, a way of life. Connecting Inside and Out Well, this is the second message in a series that I've called, "Living a Life of Worship". Something that we love to do and it seems to come naturally to us, is to have a disconnect between our faith in Christ and our lives. I mean, Sunday you may go to church – this kind of sacred zone – and we go there and we sing songs and we worship. "O God, You are so wonderful and I love You so much and I exalt You above all. Lord, I worship You and praise You and all of that stuff". Brilliant! Great! We are going to talk about that later on today in the programme. But then on Monday morning we go back to work – the same old, same old – back in the groove. Mum is maybe getting the kids off to school or maybe rushing out the door to work, dad's on the train or in the car or on the bus doing the commute. Or perhaps you're unemployed or retired or whatever, sitting at home alone and that thing that we call "worship" that happened back there on Sunday morning, it can seem a million miles away. Somehow it's not connected to the reality of life. It was great while it lasted but now it's back down to earth with a thud – it's Monday morning! Ever felt like that, that there's some disconnect between faith and life? Worship is that thing that happens over there but back in the real world it's hard, you know; it's tough. It's the grind; it's the pressure; it's the issues to deal with; it's the compromises people make. Well, you're not alone because in the West many Christ followers experience that. The fact that faith and worship and all that stuff over here, is somehow in a separate box from life over there. In the East, in Asia and places like Africa, people's upbringing in culture means that their spirituality is a lot more connected to their lives – but not in the West. Anyway, wherever or whatever, it's important that we understand what worship is all about. It's not just something we put in a box and take out on Sundays. Worship is a way of life – that's the name of this series, "Worship as a Way of Life". When we understand what worship is in God's heart, then all of a sudden life and spirituality become inseparable. Last week we began to look at the fact that the New Testament talks about two different forms of worship. One verse where they both appear is Luke, chapter 4 and verse 8. Grab your Bible. Jesus had been out in the desert; the Holy Spirit had let Him out in the desert for forty days of fasting, so by the end of it He was weakened; He was starved; He was at a low point. This was part of God's plan, in fact, next year we will be doing a whole four week series on this wilderness passage in Like chapter 4. Today I just want to look briefly at the second temptation because at the end of the forty days the devil comes along and tempts Jesus. And this second temptation is a grand delusion. If you have a Bible, open it up at Luke, chapter 4 beginning at verse 5. This is what it says: The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to Jesus, "I will give You all their authority and splendour for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want, so if You worship me, it will all be yours. Jesus answered, "It is written, worship the Lord, your God and serve Him only." Here is a standard temptation of the devil - look at this wonderful world that I have control of. You don't have to look very far to see what an influence the devil has. I mean, Jesus called him the prince of the air. "What are you doing," says the devil, "in this wilderness for God? Look, just worship me and all this can be yours." Yea, right! Listen to what the devil says to Jesus – "so if you worship me, it will all be yours." Now the Greek word that's used here for the word "worship" is "proskuneo" - it's the word from which we get "prostrate", so to prostrate ourselves; to lie down; to bow down; to kiss someone's hand; to fall down on our knees, face down and worship. That's the sort of worship I guess we do on Sunday morning in church. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 28, talks about worshipping God with awe and reverence – it's a heart of worship – it's expressing our allegiance and our gratefulness and our awe and reverence and wonder of God, by singing songs of worship and bowing down to Him. The devil says to Jesus, "Now bow down to me as You would to God." But look at Jesus' reply! Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." Jesus here is quoting the Old Testament – Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13 and there are two verbs in this sentence – worship and serve. Now the word "worship", the English word, is ...