Worship In The Worst: Our Witness to His Wonder

 September 28 2025

Psalm 116

         I have always loved history, especially American history. After you study history awhile, you begin to remember the significant dates in the life of America, like December 7 being the attack on Pearl Harbor, or November 11 is the official end of World War 1, or June 6 is when the invasion of Normandy in World War 2. Well, something happened in our American journey on September 15^th that I believe should be just as important to us not just as citizens but also as Christian’s as well. You see, September 15^th in 1963 was a Sunday, a time of worship. On this particular Sunday, just as the congregation was gathering, a bomb ripped through this Baptist church. On a Sunday when the youth of the church were slated to lead the service, four young girls died instantly in the blast. Another young lady survived with severe injuries. Now the reason why I believe we should remember this horrific even is that this terrible tragedy happened right here on American soil in a town called Birmingham, Alabama. You see, this bombing of a house of worship was the response to a court order requiring the end of the segregation of public schools in Alabama. As I pondered on this event, I thought this has to be one of the absolute worst scenarios, to experience such a loss of life in a moment when people were preparing to worship the living God. As I meditated on this some more, God seemed to ask me if such a situation would arise today, would I be willing to go and stand with those who had been attacked? In other words, would I be willing to worship with others in their worst even if in doing so could result in death? This is not as an unusual question as it sounds, for if you follow the outcome of this church bombing you will find that this tragedy led to a series of marches held in 1965, from Selma to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. As they were preparing for the second of these walks, the organizer of them, Martin Luther King, put out a nation wide plea for clergy and citizens to join the marchers in this peaceful demonstration calling for change. The call resulted in people from all across America going to Alabama to march alongside those who were not even safe when they went to worship. One of the pastors who marched on the second march, James Reeb, was beaten so severely that he lost his life. As a pastor, I cannot but help but wonder, would I would have the courage to do what this pastor felt called to do.

         As it turns out, our worship of God is to create in us a heart of courage. This is what we will discover in this segment of this message series called, “Worship In Our Worst”. To help us to understand how our hearts might be strengthened we will look at the one-hundred and sixteenth Psalm. This Psalm is one of the six songs that would have been sung by the people of Israel on the night they celebrated Passover. As their families gathered around their tables, eating roasted lamb and unleavened bread, they would have sung these Psalms beginning with the one-hundred and thirteenth Psalm and finishing with the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm. As we  follow these songs along, we find that they are taking us on a journey through the wilderness, a journey which began on that fateful night called Passover. Passover is when the people of Israel ate their roasted lamb and unleavened bread with their sandals on their feet and their staff in their hands, waiting with anticipation of at last being free. In their freedom, they were to find God alone worth serving with this new life he had given to them. The people of God are to say, “Yes, God is indeed worthy”. God desires that we also know that he is worthy not just when life is all sunshine and smiles but also in the worry of the wilderness. You know, those times when worry consumes us and threatens to drown out our worship. The truth is that God is always worthy of serving because God does not change, there is no shadow of turning with our Heavenly Father as James so aptly put it in the first chapter of his letter. The character of God, his very reputation on which he stakes his good name, is that he is and always will be, a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. We experience this love of God as we take into our hands the life he gives to us. His faithfulness is found as day by day as our living God never ceases to give us evermore life. 

          So, those who know God as being a God of the steadfast love and faithfulness are to find God worthy of giving their very life in service to him. God desires that we might bear his name, carrying his steadfast love and faithfulness out to those who desperately in need of knowing that God cares deeply for them. God places his name upon us through the blessing of Aaron. In the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, God tells Aaron, the High Priest, to place the following blessing over the people of Israel: The Lord bless you, and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord rejoice in your presence. And give you peace. Through this blessing, the name of God is placed upon the people. 

We bear the name of God when we follow his lead, being people with the same character as the God that they worship, those who love others with steadfast love and faithfulness. We bear his name when we go to the place of human affliction and through our being present in their affliction, the afflicted can be certain that God is present there too. We bear the name of God when we watch out for the safety of others. We must be always willing to intercede for others in order to protect them from danger for God has done so for us. We bear the name of God when we we are gracious, and we show unmerited favor towards those we know are in need of our generosity. We bear his name and God rejoices for we have gone from serving dead gods doing deeds that only have a dead end, to serving the living God, showing steadfast love and faithfulness to others. We live this life of love not because all of the people that we meet are worth the effort. No, the reason we demonstrate steadfast love and faithfulness is that we are convinced that God is worth whatever it takes to serve him. 

Now, when we bear the name of God, God promises us peace. Now in a world where peace is often difficult to find, this promise is quite astounding, isn’t it? Well, what we must also know is that the peace God promises to us is only given to us when we are willing do something for God. You see, peace is ours when we turn and show God the same steadfast love and faithfulness he first demonstrated to us. This giving of our love to God is what is being sung about in the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm. We hear this right from the first line of the song, “I love the Lord my God…”. The reason given for this outburst of love is that God heard our cries when we so desperately needed mercy. So because God has inclined his ear to us, we are led to respond. Yet we should want to know, just how do we love God? The answer the songwriter gives to us is that we call on God for as long as we live. Right here is the answer as to how we are to give steadfast love and faithfulness to God. We demonstrate our steadfast love  to God when we cry out to God. Our faithfulness to God is demonstrated when we promise to continue to call upon God for the duration of our life. 

         You see, as the songwriter goes on to explain, our love for God is discovered in a moment when we come face to face with death. As the song so vividly sings of that moment, here in this time when death has caught us in its trap, when the grave has begun to pull us away from the living, when we have suffered distress and anguish, this is when, with no other options left, we decide to call on God. You see, in our worst, the way we show our love to God is to find him worthy of our trust. We must have certainty that it is only by trusting solely in the name of God, his unchanging character, only then will we find deliverance in this moment. So when we cry out, “O, Lord, I pray, deliver my soul.”, what God hears is, “I love you”. 

Yet, we might wonder, just how can we have absolute certainty that when we turn to God that God is going to deliver. Here the songwriter chooses three very important aspects about God that provide a foundation for our trust. These actions of God are what might be called the wonder of God because they cause us to be in awe of our God. The first of these actions is that God is gracious. What does it mean for God to be gracious? Well, at the beginning of the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul gives us one of the best images of grace. Grace, Paul explains, is our God-given place to stand. We are assured a place in this world and this place is right next to God. We are also told in the eighth verse of that chapter that God loves us because he chooses to stand with us. So grace is God’s decision that together we will take our stand against the world. When we understand grace in this way, isn’t it right for us to be in awe and wonder of our God? Yet this grace is not just for us, alone, because we are told that God is also righteous. This means that while God may show us his favor he, nonetheless, does not play favorites; anyone is someone who can stand with God. Again, when we know that God is willing to stand with everyone, how can we not be filled with awe and wonder? Yet God is not finished  because the Psalm also tells us that our God is merciful. The God who stands with everyone is a God who seeks always to bring more life never condemnation and death. This should absolutely cause us to be amazed and filled with wonder at what only our living God can do! So it is this grace, righteousness, and mercy of our God, this is what we might call the very wonder of God. This wonder of God  is what our lives are to witness to. You see the songwriter rejoices because they know of the wonder of God.  They are certain that the living God is the God who stands with those who cannot help themselves. Isn’t this wonder-filled news? Our experience with God should always fill us with the wonder of God. 

Now all that God asks of us is this: Be a witnesses to His wonder. Tell others about the God who is willing to save the desperate. We are to live a life that proves to the world that our God is a God of wonder because we stand in wonder of  his grace, his righteous and his never failing mercy. We are witnesses that when we needed God, God showed up, wonder of wonders. When this is our witness then as the songwriter sings, there in his soul, in the very depth of his being, he has found a state of rest, a peace like a river flowing within him even in the worst of life experiences. This is good lead in for us to sing, “It Is Well With My Soul”, on page 705 of your hymnal. 

When you sang the words of this hymn did you hear that the very reason we are able to endure those times when Satan buffets us, those times when trials come, is that Christ has regarded our helpless estate and has shed his own blood for our souls. Here this hymn speaks so wonderfully of the grace, the righteousness and mercy of God. This is what gives us the certainty to say, “It is Well with My Soul”, even in the worst. So we can join with the witness of the writer of this Psalm that the Lord has indeed dealt abundantly or bountifully to us. What the writer is saying to us here is that the Lord has brought our hearts back to a state of wholeness. You see, when we experience the worst life has to offer, our hearts are torn in their loyalty to God. Right then when our hearts languish is when we experience the wonder of God. Here in our worst, the grace, righteousness and mercy of God are given to us without measure. We become a witness to the wonder of God, the very wonder that has made our hearts whole once more.

         The importance of having a wholehearted love for the God who loves us is found in a story from the time of the wilderness wanderings. This should cone as no surprise because these Psalms sung on the night of Passover are a retelling of the journey of God’s people to the promised land. If you listen carefully to this one-hundred and sixteenth Psalm you can hear  an echo of the rebellion of God’s people in the wilderness. The full account of this story is found in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Numbers. There we find the story of when God told Moses to send spies from the wilderness to go and scout out the Promised Land. Well, after forty days, most of the spies return with tales of a land that to them was a good place to die and not much else. They told of how this land was filled with giants and fierce enemies, a land that devours all those who try and dwell there. Hearing such gruesome accounts, of course the people became terrified. They wanted nothing more than to turn around and head back to Egypt. Well, it was at this point, when all appeared lost, that one, lone, voice piped up. This voice told a different story. The voice was that of Joshua. He too had spied the very same land yet he had seen a land that was exceedingly good. Joshua had also known the wonder of the Lord, and he witnessed to this wonder. Joshua was strong and courageous because he never forgot that God stands with us. Joshua was certain that God’s people could absolutely count on God to bring them into this good land which flows with milk and honey. So Joshua urged his people to not fear what opposed them for these enemies would be the ones consumed. You see, it was the people living in the Promised Land, these are the ones who should be frightened for they had nothing to protect them. So can you see how Joshua witnessed to the the wonder of God? He told his people to take heart, there simply was no reason for the people of God to fear for God stands with them.

 Well, after Joshua witnessed to the wonder of God, God right on cue,  enters into their midst. He is rightfully angry with his people, because as God tells Moses, their eyes had witnessed the wonder of God ten times as God performed miracle after miracle. Ten times they had watched God work wonders yet they still worried.  So God rightfully had enough of them. As the Psalmist wrote of this situation, “I said in my alarm, all men are liars.” You see, when the people of God refused to witness to the wonders of God then they did not speak the truth about God and they failed to love God. So God told this generation that they would never enter into the Promised Land, the place the ninety fifth Psalm, describes as a place of rest and peace. 

As Jesus sang the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm as part of his Passover celebration before his death, I wonder if this song is what led Jesus to tell his friends around the table, “Peace is what I leave with you; my peace I give to you” How could Jesus speak of peace knowing he would soon be facing his very death? The answer is found at the end of the sixteenth chapter of John, where Jesus tells his friends, “I am not alone for the Father is with me. I tell you this so that in me you might have peace.” You see, it is the wonder of the Father’s presence which never leaves us, this is what we witness to even in our worst, even if the worst is death. This is why we can suffer with others even if doing so puts us in harms way, for even there we can witness to the wonder of our God. We can witness that God stands with all of us and he will bring us safely home. To God be the glory! Amen!