Finding The Heart's True Home

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.