Worship in the Worst: Worship Our Living God

 September 7 2025

Psalm 113

         I’ve been through a lot of different job applications over the years but perhaps the strangest job interview I ever had was when I applied at an electrical supply company called State Electric. The manager, Ned, was a very Christian man and he was excited to find out that I was a part-time pastor. Well, as we wrapped up the interview he asked if he could pray and I said that would be great. So I was glad to have a boss who loved Jesus. Well, a year or so into the job, Ned, comes out from his office looking pretty down and he strikes up a conversation with me. He tells me that things were not going well with the store, the numbers were down, sales projections were off, and the state of things was getting to him. Well, I turned to him and said, “Have you prayed about it, Ned? His face turned a shade of red, and he barked, “Well that’s a cavalier attitude!, and he marched back to his office. Now, I had no idea what his blow-up was about. I didn’t even know what it meant to have a cavalier attitude. I had to take to Google to found out that a cavalier attitude meant that I was being rather dismissive of Neds concerns when I asked if he had prayed about his situation. Yet, I really was not being flippant or off-handed in my remarks to Ned when I asked him if he has prayed about what was troubling him. No, I firmly believed, and still do believe that when life is at its worst you can still find ways to worship God, and prayer is a good place to begin doing so. Now, such actions may not immediately provide the answers that one is searching for. Yet, despite this, what worship will do is to is to bring an awareness that God really is with you when it feels like the walls are closing in, and that is what should matter most.

         A good example of the importance of being able to worship in the worst of times is found in the response to the terrible events that happened on September eleventh, 2001. Most of us remember where we were when the first plane hit the World Trade Center tower in New York. The TV coverage played the video non-stop, this horrific scene when the jumbo jet plowed directly into the first skyscraper. While we were attempting to make sense of what had just happened, another jet flew in and hit the second tower. This was the beginning of one of the worst disasters to ever happen on American soil. Almost three thousand people died and thousands were injured in these brutal attacks by Al-Qaddafi terrorists. 

Now, along with these terrible memories of that day, what I also remember about that tragedy is that brought people everywhere to begin singing Amazing Grace. People didn’t turn to the National anthem, even though this was sung as well, but instead our country seemed to find the comfort it desperately needed  when life was at its worst, there in a song about God and his grace shown to even wretches like us. Just what does this song written by John Newton so long ago, speak to us even when life is at its worst? Perhaps it is that when life falls apart the God we so desperately need is the God who offers us this amazing gift called grace. A word from God simply would not do in this instance. No, in the face of such overwhelming death and destruction we needed God to move and act and extend his grace. Here in this sing we remembered that we have a God who welcomes us home to shelter us when our world seemed to be crashing in upon us. With this in mind, we going to pause the message for a few moments and turn to page 343 in our hymnals to sing a few verses of Amazing Grace. As we sing, I want us to focus on the words that we sing. Let us consider just what might have been the thoughts that the songwriter, Issac Watts may have had when he wrote this song. Most importantly just let us wonder just how this song is indeed able to assist us to worship God even in the worst life has to offer.( Sing, “Amazing Grace”. )

So what can we now say that  about this song, Amazing Grace? Just what does it say to us when life is at its worst? Well, it begins by reminding us that when our life was as low as it could get, God still showed up. It was when we were a wretch, or in our day we might say a wreck, this is when God saved us. When we were lost it was God who came and found us. When we were blind, God gave us sight. This gentle, caring way of our God that we simply call his grace, this is what causes us to be in awe of him. Yet this same grace is what relieves our fears when we are afraid. John Newton calls us to consider that God rescuing us from succumbing to the fears that threaten us, this grace, this should be precious to us for this grace has been our assurance from the very moment that we first believed. So when our nation faced this terrible disaster on 9/11, this song, Amazing Grace, brought comfort to our hearts because it reminded us that beyond this death and devastation is a God who saves, the God who relieves us of our overwhelming fear so that we might once again be able to believe and find hope.

This power of a song to speak to people the truths they need to hear in moments when worshiping God is difficult is something that is embedded within our scriptures. The morning stars sang when God brought forth creation and so singing was there in our very beginning. The power of a song is that singing aids our memory. Advertisers know that jingles are not easily forgotten. All I need to do is start singing, “My bologna has a first name…”, and from somewhere deep in our minds out will come the worst, “Its O-S-C-A-R”. When we know the power of a simple tune then it should come as no surprise that the largest book of the Bible, hands down, is the book of Psalms, the song book of God’s people for thousands of years. We, unfortunately no longer know the tunes but we do have the words that had been sung, so at least we know just what should not be forgotten for these are the truths that lead us to worship in our worst.

         These Psalms were the foundation of worship for the people of Israel yet even though people know this they often are surprised that Jesus and his disciples sang these Psalms together. In the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, the thirtieth verse, we are told that it is only after Jesus and his followers had sung a hymn that they then went to the Mount of Olives to pray. Here, on what had to be the worst night of his life, Jesus worshipped his Heavenly Father, first through singing, followed by a time of prayer.

         Now there is evidence to support the belief that the Psalms that were sung during Passover are the one hundred and thirteenth Psalm through to the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm. As we might recall, Passover is what Jesus and his disciples had been celebrating just before they headed out to the Mount of Olives. So as part of their last supper with Jesus, the disciples may have sung, over the course of the evening, these six songs. They would have needed no songbooks for these songs they would have heard and sung along to them when they were but little children. Children were an important aspect of the festival the people of Israel called Passover because this was a night of remembering the fateful night when long ago, God caused the king of Egypt to grant freedom to his slaves, the people of Israel. They were to remember how God instructed his people to gather as families in their homes. They instructed by God to slaughter a lamb and take its blood and paint the doorposts and lintel, marking them out as being God’s people. Then they were to roast the lamb, and prepare themselves to leave Egypt quickly. When evening came, the angel of death came upon the land of Egypt taking every first-born child and first-born animal as well. Yet, the people of God would be spared because the blood of the Lamb made it possible for God to shield his people from this terror. They could indeed say that the angel of death had, “passed over”, them.

         So, the people of Israel were commanded by God to remember this night when they had come up out of Egypt through the grace of God in this celebration called Passover. Over time, the people of Israel added six songs that assisted them in their worship that evening. As Jesus and his disciples gathered around that table that evening, ready to eat the roasted lamb and hear again the story of that night, it was only Jesus who knew what lay ahead for him. Only Jesus knew that this was going to be the worst day of his life. We are right to wonder just how could Jesus share in the worship of that Passover all the while knowing that he was going to be the very Lamb whose blood was shed for the sins of the world? I believe that those songs Jesus sang that evening were an important element of his preparation to offer his life as a ransom for many.

         With all of this in mind, let us imagine ourselves sitting at the table with Jesus and his friends, singing the one hundredth and thirteenth Psalm. They would have sung this song with just as much ease as we do when we sing, “Amazing Grace”. This song begins by declaring that the Lord our God is to be praised! Four times in three short verses the song insists that we must get busy praising God. And just who, is it that is to praising God? The song says that it is the servants of God, this is who is to be praising God. This is an echo of what is heard in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, where we here that the people of God are to serve God and worship him alone. These two ideas, service and worship belong together for to worship God means that we find our service to God worth what ever it might cost us. What is often missed when we speak of praising God is that there is a connection between our praising God and us having something appraised to figure out its value. It may come as a surprise but the word, “praise”, and the word, “price”, come from the same roots. So our praising God is much like an auction where we come before God and say whatever the price, whatever the cost, I am willing to pay the price to serve you alone, O God.

         We are left wondering, then, just why we as the people of God, are to be willing to serve God and instead of receiving anything for our labor we instead are willing to pay whatever the cost for the privilege of working for God, why is this our overwhelming desire? Well, the song continues by asking us, “Who is like the Lord our God? Who is like the One who is seated on high yet who looks down at the skies and the earth? The song asks us to consider the reasons why we have placed such a high value on our relationship with God. What is it about our God that sets him apart from all the rest that we might desire to serve? The song goes on to tell us that what our God does is that he raises the poor from the dust. Our God lifts the needy from the waste heap.In other words, while our God is high above all nations, his glory reaching high above the heavens yet where he is also to be found is with those who are found in the very lowest places a person can find themselves, laying in the dust, discarded in a pile of waste. The prophet Isaiah repeats this very truth in the fifty-seventh chapter, the fifteenth verse, where God says, “I dwell in the high and holy places. Yet, I also can be found with those whose spirits are broken, those of a lowly spirit. I am there to give new life to the spirit of the lowly and to make the hearts of the broken pulse once more with life.” Here we discover the reason why our God is to be appraised to be of great worth to all of us, and that is this: Our God is the living God. Now, yes, that seems to be rather obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, what we need to remember is just why does it matter that we know that our God is a living God, the very source of all life? The reason why it matters is for us to consider life, and as we ponder on life we should realize that what defines life is that life always brings forth more life, pure and simple. So to say that our God is a living God means that he is life, a life which brings forth more life. Jesus even says quite clearly in the sixth chapter of John, that he is the bread of God who came down from heaven to give life to the world. Here again we find the living God reaching down into our world to bring forth more life. You see, just as in the days when this Psalm was written, there are many so called gods which people find worthy of giving the sum total of their life to, yet there just is no possible way for a dead god to bring anyone more life. This is what is insinuated in the last verse of this one hundred and thirteenth Psalm. Our God gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. This just makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean how non-sensical to pray to a dead god to bring forth more life? No, what we find through out scripture are story after story where our living God becomes the living hope for those in search of more life.

         You see, the reason that God makes the lowest of the low have a seat next to the ones who are considered to be great is that life makes us all equals. It is death which gives us the illusion of power, this which is the power of princes. No, the power of living God is not the power which raises up the powerful but instead the power of the living God is the power to bring forth more life. This is the very reason why when we step back to appraise this life we have serving God that we find that our living God is worth receiving our life because we know that life brings forth more life. So as we give our life to God we will find that we have more life just as planting a seed brings forth an abundant harvest. This life our living God gives to us is the life of more, the, “more”, found when all people, princes and paupers alike, are equal and united. This is the beautiful vision held forth in this opening song in the celebration of Passover. As Jesus was preparing himself to worship in the worst life had to offer, these words sung by him affirmed his conviction that giving his life fully over to his living Heavenly Father was worth going through the worst. Jesus sang knowing that life always brings forth more life so to give his life meant that in some way there was going to be absolutely more life. This is the very same hope we find when we sang, Amazing Grace in response to one of our nations worst tragedies. We sang to remember that by God’s grace, beyond this death and destruction, life will go on for we serve a living God whose life brings forth more life. This is why we are willing to set the price of our service to our God as being the gift of our very life.We do so because we are absolutely certain that our giving of our life to our living God can only bring forth more life. God indeed be praised! Amen!