At certain times of the year Christ Covenant Church focuses its attention on taking the good news to the nations. This is both healthy and fitting as the practice of worship should build in us a concern, love, and urgency for the world. At the same time biblical worship should cause a humility to grow within our own hearts, one which the hymn below expresses so well.
There are a number of songs and hymns that help us pray for the world, but one of the most moving is How Sweet and Awesome is the Place. Not only is the melody beautiful, the text walks us through recognizing that we don’t personally deserve what we now want for the world.
(Note: The original text, quoted below, is “How Sweet and Awful,” which is a bit more robust. However, it’s older meaning of “awe-filled” is lost on most of us. So, here at CCC in Matthews, NC, we sing “awesome.”)
1 How sweet and awful is the place
with Christ within the doors,
while everlasting love displays
the choicest of her stores.
2 While all our hearts and all our songs
join to admire the feast,
each of us cries, with thankful tongue,
“Lord, why was I a guest?
3 “Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
and enter while there’s room,
when thousands make a wretched choice,
and rather starve than come?”
4 ‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
that sweetly drew us in;
else we had still refused to taste,
and perished in our sin.
5 Pity the nations, O our God,
constrain the earth to come;
send Thy victorious Word abroad,
and bring the strangers home.
6 We long to see Thy churches full,
that all the chosen race
may, with one voice and heart and soul,
sing Thy redeeming grace.