October 5 2025
Psalm 117
You may have not been aware of this but there was a rumor floating around that the Rapture was going to happen on September 25th. It turned out to be more of a rupture instead of a Rapture because it turned out to be a big bust. Of course I couldn’t help but think of the end days, and scriptures like Matthew 24, the sixth through the eighth verses, where Jesus tells his disciples, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but do not be alarmed for this must take place, yet even still, this is not the end.” What Jesus tells us is a fairly evident fact, that even here some 2000 years later we are indeed a world at war. If you go to the website, “Our World in Data”, and find the section on, ‘War and Peace’, you discover this very truth. I mean, did you know that since the year, 1800, over 37 million people have died as a result of war? It goes on to say that it has been centuries since the world has had just one single year when there has not been not some sort of armed conflict between nations. Perhaps the most alarming data found here is that every year there are, on average, 150 armed conflicts around the world. So, yes, Jesus we agree with you, for we do hear of wars and rumors of wars. Now, if it is true, as General Sherman was once quoted as saying, “War is Hell”, then for many people around the globe they are experiencing hell right here on earth. As we consider in these series of messages, “Worship in the Worst”, we must wonder just how does our worship of God witness to a world where so many people are experiencing war, one the very worst of human experiences?
An answer to the question of how we, as God’s people, can witness to a world of wars and rumors of wars, is as Jesus tells us, we are “…to see that we are not alarmed”. So, I have to ask, just how are we doing at not being alarmed while we live in a world at war? Well, there is a very important reason why Jesus gives what seems to be an impossible order. You see, it is here at the beginning of the fourth chapter of James, that you find a very good reason why we are to be people who are not alarmed all the while living in a world at war. James writes, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?”. The answer James gives is this, “…your passions are at war within you.” James goes on to explain, “You desire and can’t obtain, so you murder. You covet and cannot have what you desire, so you fight and quarrel. The reason you do not have is that you do not ask God for what you need. You do not ask God for what you need because when you do ask you do not receive what you have asked for. You have never stopped to consider that the reason why you have not received what you ask for is that you only ask for what fuels your passions; your wrong motives are so very evident. You are people who are trying to be a two-timer in your relationship with God. You are trying to keep your lover, the world, on the side all the while thinking you can still have a relationship with God. Do you not know that if you are a being all chummy with the world then you are, in that moment, making God your enemy!” You see, when one’s passions are at war in their heart then they will end up having a heart with a passion for war. So instead of having a heart that is contented with what the Lord provides, people will instead covet what they do not have. The burning desire to obtain what one does not have leads people to use and abuse others to get what they want. So when Jesus says for us to be, “not alarmed”, he is telling us to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the answer. The answer is, as Jesus says, for us to to not be alarmed for we are to have hearts at peace because there is no longer a war waging inside of our hearts.
You see, if we are to have peace in this world at war then our hearts must no longer be full of passions at war within them. This is what James gives as the answer to our restlessness, found later in that same fourth chapter, “…purify your hearts, you double-hearted.” James is saying that we can indeed live in a state of rest; all that is necessary is for us to have a heart healed of what is tearing it apart. This means that our hearts must be brought back to a state of absolute loyalty to God. No longer are we to have a heart that chases after the world while still attempting to be in a relationship with God. No, now is the time to have a heart that desires only one thing, and that one thing is God. This is what it means to have a heart that is purified, a heart that desires only the one, true, living God.
Now, we should not be surprised at this this answer, that it is vitally important it is for us to purify our hearts because this answer is found the Psalm we studied last week, the one-hundred and sixteenth Psalm.This Psalm is part of a group of songs sung on the night of Passover. You see, it is here, in the seventh verse of this song that we are told, “Return O, my soul, to your rest and peace for the Lord has made you whole.” Here God calls us to come back to where our hearts are at last at peace, no longer alarmed even in a world at war. God calls us to throw the worry of the wilderness out of our hearts and to once again find God alone worthy of serving him with our life. When our hearts are purified then we are at last able to rest, to have a heart settled in perfect peace.
Well, when we hear what God expects it sounds like not just a big ask but more like an impossible one. I believe that on our own, getting our hearts brought back to a state of rest and peace is beyond us. What a relief to know that God understands our limitations. This is why God created us to need other people. You see, God expects that we worship him every minute of every day. Yet, once every seven days God calls us to worship together. This day is set apart given in order for us to experience a Sabbath rest. You see, God’s plan for us to withstand a world at war is for us to stand with each other in our worship of God. So when people ask us, why do you get up on a Sunday morning and gather together with your church family for worship every week, the answer is that we come to have our hearts healed. We desire to once again be able to say that deep in our souls we have indeed returned to a place of rest. You see our witness is not that we are people who never mess up and in our weak state go out and chase after the world. No, our witness is that we know that in order to withstand the world and its hold on us, we have to stand with others in our worship of God. As we stand together with each other in our worship of God, the wonder of God, his grace, righteousness and mercy is witnessed here among us. This is the promise we find at the end of the twentieth chapter of Exodus, where we are God says to us, “In all places, where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you, and I will bless you.” Those we stand with in worship cause us to remember that our God is a God whose very name is steadfast love and faithfulness. This is when we know that our God is indeed present with us, giving us the blessing of his presence. This promise from God is to be our most valuable possession, that which is worth everything to us. So as we ponder how we might stand on these promises of God, let us sing together, “Standing on the Promises”, found on page 410.
You see, the reason why we must stand on these promises of God is as the song tells us, here the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, this is just part of living in a world at war. These doubts and fears make us wonder, is God standing with me right now, in this trouble that I am facing? We worry that if we fail to witness to the wonder of God, will God still be found to be standing with us? You see, the worry of the world has a way of, “dissing”, on us. We go from being at ease to being dis-eased. We go from a state of comfort to being in a state of dis-comfort. We are no longer contented for we find ourselves quite dis-contented. Can you see how one can begin to look at their neighbors in such a state and say in their hearts, “I want what they have.” So when this world at war causes a war to stir up in our hearts we desperately need to stand together in our worship of God. Together, our worship empowers us to confess with the the Psalmist “ My soul has returned to a place of rest”.
You see, when we worship together, what happens is much like an activity we used to do in youth group called, “Car Wash. In this activity, I would have the youth group form two parallel lines, facing each other. Then, one by one, each person would walk down the line, past their friends and hear them say something positive and uplifting about them as they walked by each person. The negative insults of the world would get washed away by the overwhelming words of love. In a very similar way, when we come to worship together we gather to speak to one another words of love to help to wash away all the ways of the world has dissed on us. This is why when people find themselves dis-eased, we surround them in prayer, so they can once again stand on the promise of God that he is standing with them in their fight. When people are feeling dis-comfort, we comfort each other with the promise that we will be with them in life’s struggles.When we are dis-contented, together we discover a life of contentment when we care for one another, helping each other out when life is tough.
You see, it is in this time of gathered worship, that restless, anxious and worried souls like ourselves can come and have our hearts repaired and restored. As we worship, we are made whole once again so that we at last can experience a peace beyond our understanding. We discover that this healing is found when we stand with each other in worship and our brothers and sisters witness to us the truth of the promises of God. Jesus, speaks in the eighteenth chapter of Mathew, that where two or three are gathered, there is where Jesus will be. These two or three are the number of witnesses necessary to speak the truth. So, through their testimony then, we are certain Jesus is present, that God does indeed stand with us. What good news for those who come to worship God yet who also find themselves doubting the promise of God. When those who doubt stand together in worship with those who testify that the presence of God is there with them, they too can find the certainty that God does indeed stand with them as well. The hearts that come to worship divided in their loyalty to God are to find that their hearts have been healed, purified once more.
When we stand together in worship in order to withstand the world, we experience our salvation. Salvation is when our hearts that were once filled with warring passions at last become purified. This is the power found when we experience the wonder of God, his grace, righteousness, and mercy. These actions of God cause us to worship the name of God, his unchanging character, his steadfast love and faithfulness. This is what the people of God learned as they wandered in the wilderness after they has been set free on the night of Passover. In this series of messages we are looking at the songs which were sung as part of the celebration of Passover. These songs, you see, were the songs sung by Jesus on the worst night of his life, songs that assisted Jesus to worship in his worst. We can know then that these songs can also assist us to worship in our worst. In our scripture for today, the one-hundredth and seventeenth Psalm, we are told that all of the nations are to come and praise our God. All peoples are called to come and glorify the Lord. The reason why the whole world is caught up in worship is that they have left their warring ways behind them because they too have experienced the wonder of God. Now they too know that the name of our God is steadfast love and faithfulness. This is good news for our world but imagine as Jesus and his followers sang this little ditty as part of their Passover celebration. Just what were their thoughts as those who were living under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire. I mean, did God really think for a moment that these occupying forces deserved to know the steadfast love and faithfulness of God? Even though this song is what was sung every year by God’s people, that all people, everywhere, were going to be praising God for his name, his steadfast love and faithfulness, they had to wonder, just how would God fulfill this promise.
The answer is perhaps, that as the people celebrating Passover would have sung this one-hundred and seventeenth Psalm, they may have remembered how the people of God wandering in the wilderness had come into contact with the people of Moab. This story is found in the twenty third chapter of Numbers. You see, the king of Moab was distressed when he witnessed this great horde coming up out of Egypt and who were now wandering about in the wilderness. So he called a powerful spiritual man to place a curse on these intruders. Well, when this great spiritual man named Balaam went to place a curse upon Israel, God whispered in his ear that the people of God were unable of being cursed for God had blessed them. What becomes apparent through this story of Balaam is that the promises of God upon which we take our stand are founded upon the unchanging nature of our God. So yes, when we proclaim that God has blessed us, we do so knowing that there is nothing that can remove this blessing God has given to us. As the Holy Spirit then overtakes Balaam, we hear the Spirit witness that the people of God are a people who stand apart from the nations. Balaam sees that these are the upright people who stand with the God they know stands with them. As Balaam goes to speak to King Balak, we find that the Spirit comes on him a second time and this time Balaam learns that the living God is not like humans for he does not lie; God does not change his mind. The Holy Spirit also told him that the living God is not a God who requires us to say special words in mysterious ways to figure out what this God is up to. All one needs in order to discover what God is up to is for them to look at his people, this is where the nations can watch God at work. Our God is found in the worship of his people, this is just who our God is. If this is who our God is then this is why we can also know without a doubt we can stand on his promises. When we know this is who our God is, then yes, our God is indeed worthy of our worship. You see, these God inspired speeches spoken there in the wilderness speak to us of a God who can and will bring our world back to a state of flourishing for one day he will be king over all. This is the God who is able to bring the nations to know his name for he is indeed a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. This is our God, the very God we remember, the God who can be found in all places, the God who shows up anytime we stand together in worship in order to withstand a world at war. Amen!
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