There is a war for our worship

Just back from the second of our WIRED to worship Holy week sessions at Aldridge Parish Church. Really encouraged that people came back for more… the offer of Jaffa cakes was too good to resist I reckon. Tonight we explored the subject “There is a war for our worship”.

We started with a clip from Star Wars – the bit where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have a big old fight, and Darth tries to get Luke to join him and the dark side.

In our lives, there is a constant battle between the force (God) and the dark side (the devil). God wants worshippers who give their true self to him in worship. The devil wants to stop that - he wants to steal our affection away from God.

We read about the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the wilderness. In Matthew 4: 8-10 it says:

the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you”, he said, “if you bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only”.

If the devil tried to steal Jesus’s worship of God, he will surely try to steal ours. It probably won’t be in as blatant a fashion as Jesus experienced - more like a subtle word here, a little lie there. Just chipping away bit by bit. So we need to guard our worship and carefully evaluate all potential takers – always remembering to do it with the help and strength of God. Psalm 27:1 says:

The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?

After playing “I can’t believe it’s not butter – the game” (you had to be there, but it is another classic by my reckoning), we looked at the story of the woman at the well from John 4 and we watched a clip of her true, authentic and heartfelt worship in response to her encounter with Jesus. She was transformed by the experience of meeting the Messiah – the one who would revolutionise how we can all come to and worship God.

Great to be with our brilliant church family again tonight, exploring our lives of worship together. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Darth photo by Makoworks via flickr