Why We Sing

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:07
And we're going to look at one verse today.
00:11
This verse will probably, as it were, actually become at least two messages, as is my habit of writing more than I can say.
00:28
And so I have decided, in the preparation of this message, that it will at least take two sermons to get through, and probably not three, but we'll see as we go.
00:43
And the title of today is the question, Why We Sing.
00:51
Every Sunday, Christians gather, and we gather in worship services all around the world to worship God, and in general, there are elements in worship that are consistent no matter where we go.
01:20
The elements of worship almost always include some form of prayer, even though in some churches, prayer seems almost incidental and short.
01:34
It's still there, while in other churches, prayers can be long and plentiful.
01:42
But prayer is certainly an essential element of worship.
01:48
I don't know anyone who would say, we don't need to pray.
01:53
And the next would be preaching.
01:57
And while preaching has fallen on hard times in our latter days, we see preaching often gets the least amount of attention in some places, yet it's still present, even though I would submit that it's often much more like a TED talk than preaching, but it is there, and that is an element of worship.
02:26
But the part of the service which is almost universally present, no matter where you are, and is the most diverse portion of the worship service, meaning that where you go will be different from place to place, is the praise, and by that I mean the singing.
02:51
So, three Ps, right? I'm a good Baptist.
02:53
We have prayer, and preaching, and praising.
02:59
And as I said, the singing or the praising tends to be the most diverse.
03:05
Depending upon where you are in the world, it will look vastly different.
03:11
Churches of different cultures and ethnicities often sing much differently.
03:17
If I were to visit the Tao tribe in Indonesia and spend time with Scott Phillips, I can imagine that the way and the songs that they sing would be much different than the way and the songs that we sing here.
03:32
And I believe that that diversity is actually beautiful, as we see God receiving the praise of His people in diverse ways according to their abilities.
03:50
However, this diversity in praise is one of the leading causes of congregational strife in the world.
04:02
If there is one thing that has caused more division in the last, well, I would say the last 50 years at least, and 100 years potentially, it would be the concept of musical choice, and might we say, style of music.
04:25
People often choose churches based upon musical preference alone.
04:33
They'll go to a church and the preaching is, mm-hmm, the prayers are, mm-hmm, but the praise, oh, the praise! And they'll come home talking about the music, and they'll sing the songs all week long, and so they choose the church based upon the music.
04:50
And in many churches, the praise singing has become the primary focus where more money, more attention, and more resources are given to that aspect of the service than any other part.
05:08
In fact, in many places, the music so outweighs the preaching and praying that the other two seem almost like incidentals.
05:17
R.C.
05:17
Sproul tells a great story of visiting a church where he was speaking, and when it was his time to speak, the pastor came up to introduce him and said, well, now that worship has concluded, we're going to hear R.C.
05:37
bring the message, to which R.C.
05:40
came up and quickly but gently corrected him and said, no, worship has not concluded, we will now worship through the hearing of the word.
05:56
The singing of praise is not the most important thing that we do, but I add a very quick caveat, that does not mean that it is unimportant.
06:18
And so, what we must understand is that the songs that we sing and the way that we sing, and even the reason for our singing deserves our attention, not because we are concerned with satisfying people.
06:43
And I've heard that said, we've got to sing these songs because that's what people like, we've got to play certain music because that's what attracts certain people, young people, old people, men, women, whatever the reason we have to sing this, because this is what they like, or we have to sing that because that is what they like.
07:05
But that absolutely moves from our mind or removes from our mind the reality of to whom we are singing.
07:15
Because if I'm singing to satisfy you, if I'm singing because it's what you want, then I'm not focused on the one to whom I'm singing, I'm focused on an incidental thing.
07:36
So we have to think through these things, we have to think through these things because thought goes into preaching, thought goes into preaching, trust me, many, many hours go into the preparation of the message and the study of the Word of God and the original languages and being able to dive in and see what is said in the Word of God and being able to understand the differences between the use of the language and all of those things.
08:05
And thought goes into the preaching and thought goes into the praying, thus thought should also go into the praising.
08:16
Thought should go into our singing.
08:19
So we're going to read the one of the two primary passages in the New Testament that deal with singing.
08:27
There are two sister passages, the first one is Ephesians chapter 5 verses 18 and 19, and the second one is Colossians chapter 3 verse 16.
08:39
We're going to read the Colossians passage because we are in a verse-by-verse study of Colossians.
08:44
Now I don't always stop on one verse, sometimes I'll do two or three verses, not usually more than four or so, but in this case we're doing just one and as I said, I don't know even if we'll get through the whole thing.
08:57
But let us stand and read the Word of God together.
08:59
The screen has the ESV translation for that is what I'll be teaching from today.
09:07
And it says in verse 16, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
09:35
Father in heaven, I pray first and foremost as I pray every time I stand behind your sacred desk, Lord, I ask that you would keep me from error.
09:47
For Lord God, you are perfect in all your ways, but I am fallible.
09:53
I am foolish.
09:56
I am man and you are God.
10:00
And therefore, Lord, I am susceptible to mistakes, to error and to failure.
10:09
So I pray, oh God, that you would keep me from error.
10:13
Open up the hearts of your people to hear your truth, Lord, that the word of God would go in to the ear and the mind, but would not stay simply in the mind, but would also be in the heart and that your Holy Spirit would apply the word of God to the hearts of your people.
10:31
And Lord, for those who are here today, whether they be young or old, who do not know Christ, Lord, that your gospel may change their heart and that the gospel would be proclaimed today, even in the midst of a subject like singing, that we would not simply talk about singing for singing sake, but Lord singing about your gospel.
10:59
And we pray all of this in Jesus name and for his sake.
11:05
Amen.
11:21
As I mentioned earlier, we are studying through the book of Colossians and we have found ourselves now in chapter three, which is where Paul is unfolding his list of Christ-like characteristics, which should mark every believer.
11:42
He has stressed that we are to put off the earthly things.
11:48
And if you remember, he outlined what those things are.
11:51
And we talked for several weeks on what things we ought to put off, the worldly things, the earthly things, the evil things that we are to put away.
12:04
And then he gave us 10 virtues that we are to put on.
12:12
And those 10 virtues have a culmination in love.
12:20
And that was our study last week.
12:22
He says, above all, put on love.
12:28
Well, in today's passage, he's continuing in this theme of what we are to do.
12:36
He's continuing in this time of instruction, this time of imperative language, meaning giving us commands, giving commands to the Colossian church, which by extension applies to us.
12:50
And he's giving commands which involve the singing of songs to one another.
12:58
That's not all that's included in this verse.
13:00
And I'm going to show you in a moment, he actually uses three different things that we're going to address, but the third of those is singing.
13:11
And in this one passage, we actually learn several truths about why we sing, about what we sing and about, excuse me, why we sing, what we sing and how we sing.
13:26
And that's our outline.
13:28
If you want to see, this is our outline for today and next week.
13:33
We're going to ask three questions and we're going to seek to answer the three questions of why should we sing, what should we sing and how should we sing? Because singing is not just for enjoyment.
13:51
Singing is not just for filling an hour of time on a Sunday morning.
13:57
And I would submit to you, and this might catch you by surprise, so please don't tune me out if you disagree, but singing is also not just for worship.
14:14
There is actually more that happens when we sing.
14:19
Worship, I would say, is a very high and important part of why we sing, but it's not the only reason.
14:28
It's not the only reason.
14:30
So that is our outline.
14:34
And we're going to focus today on why we sing.
14:37
I went over this lesson with my Sunday school class this morning.
14:41
We have been in a video series and we're totally without internet today.
14:44
So if you're wondering why the Wi-Fi is not working, it's AT&T, not us.
14:48
And we had unable to access our videos, so I basically taught them this Sunday school lesson of my sermon.
14:55
That's always my backup because I just teach them my sermon.
14:59
And I had the opportunity to ask them questions about singing and things.
15:02
And I really wish at times that sermons were more interactive because I would just stop and ask you a few questions.
15:09
Like I'd like to know in your mind right now, not that I want you to belt out your answer, but I want you to really ask yourself why we sing.
15:16
Why is this a part of the universal church? And by that I mean whether you're here or in India or in China or in Russia, wherever there are Christians, there are singers.
15:31
Now it's always different, but it's always there.
15:38
One of our favorite things to do at home during our family worship time, which we do in the evening before the kids go to bed, we have a devotional book that we read, a theology book.
15:50
And then we're currently reading through a children's version of the Pilgrim's Progress.
15:53
So we read through those and we sing.
15:56
And oftentimes I'm very grateful for YouTube because we pull up songs and sing along with people who sing much better than I do.
16:03
It can lead us better.
16:05
And so we turn on YouTube.
16:07
And one of the ones that we listened to and recently have just fallen in love with is a version of the Revelation song, which we sing here often.
16:16
Usually when I lead worship, it's one of the ones I do because it's my favorite.
16:19
But it's a version of Revelation song, which is sung in various languages.
16:25
The first person who comes out sings it in Korean.
16:28
And then the next, it's the first line, sings the line all to the same background music, but it's, you hear the words.
16:35
You can't, you don't know what he's saying.
16:36
You know what he's saying because you know the song, but you hear the words in Korean.
16:40
The next person comes out and sings it in French.
16:44
And the next person comes out and sings it in Russian.
16:47
And the next person comes out and sings it in a different language.
16:51
And it's just beautiful to be reminded of the universality of music in the church.
16:59
But why? Why is it that music is so ubiquitous? Why is it so commonplace? Well, my first answer to the question and really today's focus on why we're going to answer the question is, my first answer is that we actually see this as part of the scriptural examples of worship throughout the Bible.
17:26
If we look into the Old Testament first, of course, the Old Testament being the first books that were written about our faith, the New Testament written much later, and the Old Testament books written between around 1450 BC right around to the time of 400 BC.
17:42
So over a period of about a thousand years, the books of the Old Testament were written.
17:46
And replete throughout those books and replete throughout that thousand years are God's people singing.
17:55
The entire book of Psalms, you understand, is a hymn book for ancient Israel.
18:04
And you know, the Psalms, we often say, are the Psalms of David.
18:09
But it's not all David.
18:11
David has a portion of the Psalms, a large portion, because David himself, a poet and a person who loved music and a musician.
18:22
So he wrote many Psalms.
18:24
But he's not the only one.
18:25
We see also within the Psalms, we see Moses has a Psalm, which means that the people of Israel, even in the wilderness, because that's when Moses was leading.
18:34
We see Moses having songs that the people of God would sing.
18:40
And if you read through the Psalms, you will see that several of the Psalms have introductory notes regarding how they are to be sung.
18:48
It will say that this is to be sung by the girls or the virgins.
18:52
This is to be sung accompanied by this instrument or that instrument or this is to be sung in this manner.
19:00
So not only does the psalmist give us the words, but he gives us the encouragement not just to read the words, but to sing the words.
19:12
In fact, turn in your Bibles, if you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 150 and just be reminded that Psalm 150 is not only the final Psalm, but it is the benediction of the book of Psalms.
19:31
And it is the final Psalm in the sense that it culminates the Psalms.
19:38
And I know that many of you know it, but I want you to hear it again, because I want you to consider what this Psalm tells us to do.
19:49
It says, praise the Lord.
19:52
Praise God in His sanctuary.
19:56
Praise Him in His mighty heavens.
19:59
Praise Him for His mighty deeds.
20:02
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
20:07
Praise Him with trumpet sound.
20:10
Just for a moment, think on that.
20:13
Here is the call to praise Him with instruments.
20:17
Beloved, there's a lot of debate in the church about instrumental use.
20:26
And not today, because today we're on the why.
20:30
Next week, we're going to talk about the what and the how.
20:33
We're going to talk a little bit about things like exclusive psalmody, which is a very common in Reformed circles, and non-instrumental singing, which is very common in the church of Christ, but also in some Reformed circles.
20:51
And I want to address that later.
20:53
But for now, I just want to point you to the fact that in God's own word, and one would argue, well, this is old covenant, and we'll talk about that later, about why in this text that doesn't really matter.
21:05
But for now, He says, praise Him with trumpet sound.
21:10
Praise Him with lute and harp.
21:14
Praise Him with tambourine.
21:16
I asked my kids this morning, who knows what a tambourine is? None of them knew what a tambourine was.
21:21
I said, boy, we got to get one of them.
21:25
And I grew up going to this church, but I also would go sometimes with my mom to holiness church.
21:31
And if you go to holiness church, you're going to see a tambourine.
21:35
So praise Him with tambourine and dance.
21:39
Praise Him with strings and pipe.
21:43
Praise Him with sounding cymbals.
21:46
So whenever you get uncomfortable with Jerry on the drums, just know you ought not be.
21:53
That's biblical to have them cymbals.
21:58
Praise Him with loud clashing cymbals.
22:05
Let everything that has breath.
22:08
Praise the Lord.
22:10
Praise the Lord.
22:12
That's from God's word.
22:15
That isn't a pamphlet sent out to us by the local singers association.
22:22
That isn't something that was written by brother Matt to encourage us to sing.
22:26
This is from God's word and it tells us to praise Him and to praise Him all different ways and to praise Him with song.
22:35
So we have that passage.
22:37
We also have passages in the Old Testament that make reformed people real uncomfortable because there's a passage where David danced before the Lord.
22:48
No, I'm just saying they worshiped God with their body.
22:58
They made that a part of worship.
23:02
So singing was not to them, you know, oh how I love Jesus.
23:09
Really? Because you don't sound like it.
23:12
No, I'm being a little humorous, but really? Thank you.
23:24
You know, David worshipped so, so powerfully that day that his wife was embarrassed.
23:34
Man, have you ever sang with such power that your wife looked at you and was like, wow, people are going to hear you.
23:43
And they shouldn't.
23:47
I mean, again, we have to understand the context and the situation that they're in, but David's worship of his God was so powerful and so expressive that even his own wife was embarrassed for the action that he was doing.
24:07
Singing is something that we see throughout the Old Testament, but it's also something we see in the New Testament.
24:17
If you have your Bibles, again, I would encourage you just to quickly turn with me to Matthew chapter 26.
24:27
Now in Matthew chapter 26, this is after the upper room discourse with Jesus with his apostles, and he is preparing to go to the Mount of Olives, and I want you to notice what it says.
24:49
It says in chapter 26, verse 30, if you're there, say amen.
24:54
In Matthew 26, verse 30, it says, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
25:04
Can you imagine singing with Jesus as your worship leader? Can you imagine the moment of song with Christ calling you to worship? We read past that like it's nothing, but the Bible is filled with these moments that just say, wow, what amazing reality that they sang with the Lord, and this can't be the only time Jesus was filled with love for his Father.
25:40
He was filled with praise and prayer to his Father, so certainly his mouth was full of song to his Father.
25:47
We can certainly come to that conclusion very easily, and since you're turning in your Bibles, turn over just a couple of chapters to Acts chapter 16, and go to verse 25.
26:15
When you go to Acts chapter 16 and verse 25, it says, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
26:36
You ever been to jail? Oh wait, wrong question.
26:38
Might not be fair.
26:40
But I imagine it's the last place you want to sing, especially a first century Roman prison.
26:50
Certainly not sterile and comfortable at all.
26:54
Would have been dank and dirty and uncomfortable, and they would have been in chains, and yet these two men had such an understanding of the presence of God and the reality that where they were was in fact where God had brought them in their life, and that they were not there by accident, and that this present suffering was not to be compared to the glory that would be revealed to them according to Romans chapter 8.
27:22
They were in that moment understanding who God truly was, and so rather than sulking, and rather than whining, and rather than complaining, they were praying and they were singing to God, so much so that it caused the attention of the other men.
27:46
And you know the story that follows this, right? The earthquake happens, the man runs in, and he thinks they're all gone, and when he comes in, they're still there, and he says, how might I be saved? Now why in the world would he ask that question? Because he's been listening to them sing about salvation this whole time.
28:12
He wouldn't have known the context to ask the question if he had not heard from their mouths the proclamation of God's goodness, and his salvation, and his word through song.
28:31
So singing is throughout the old covenant scriptures.
28:36
Singing is throughout the new covenant scriptures.
28:42
I want to show you two more before we go back to Colossians.
28:45
Go to James chapter 5, and go to verse 13.
29:07
James has often been compared to the book of Proverbs.
29:12
I think comparatively speaking, it is the closest thing in the New Testament that we have to the Proverbs of the Old Testament.
29:19
It has also been compared to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gives an understanding of the law of God.
29:25
James is a powerful book, most likely in my estimation, the first book of the New Testament written, possibly written within just a little over a decade of when Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.
29:36
This is an old book.
29:37
It's a very Jewish book.
29:39
It has, it's a powerful book, and it is replete throughout with admonishments to things that are difficult, things like taking joy in trials, and things like that, which are hard, but yet we're commanded and called to do it.
29:53
But this particular passage I love, because he says, is any among you suffering? And all God's children said, Amen.
30:02
Not everybody's suffering at the same time, but there's always suffering.
30:08
And he says, if there's anyone among you who's suffering, let him pray.
30:16
And is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
30:27
I want to tell you this.
30:29
I actually think in this passage that there's a parallel between praying and singing, because one, partially because of the construction here, but also one of the reasons why we pray, or excuse me, one of the reasons why we sing is singing is a form of corporate prayer.
30:59
It's a form of coming together and saying the same things together that are true.
31:10
And this is why, how many of you remember, we don't do this much anymore.
31:13
Maybe we should.
31:14
Brother Matt, let's add this to the list, because he and I have been talking a lot, because he's leaving, and I want to cry.
31:21
But we've been talking a lot about songs and things, and you know, a lot of songs used to end with, Amen.
31:33
Why? Because it was understood that the song was more than a song.
31:39
It was a prayer.
31:41
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
32:02
Amen.
32:05
Amen.
32:08
Can we hear the prayer in the song? And when we, when we suffer, we pray, and when we're cheerful, we sing.
32:23
But it's also true that sometimes when we suffer, we can sing our prayers.
32:44
Coming home from Mike's house, I just sing for God's mercy, because I don't know what to say.
33:13
But the words are there.
33:14
They're in us, because we sing them.
33:19
They're a part of us, because we sing them.
33:28
And this is why I believe Paul includes this in Colossians 3.
33:36
I was going to make you go to Ephesians.
33:38
I want to go right back to Colossians.
33:39
Ephesians basically says the same thing.
33:41
It says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
33:47
And I'm actually going to look at that more next week when we talk about how we sing, because he actually uses the phrase making melody, which addresses actually things like using instruments and things like that.
33:57
I do believe that's there, so we'll talk about that next week.
34:00
But go back to Colossians.
34:01
I want to show you something in this passage that we mustn't miss.
34:08
And so in this passage, it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
34:15
Now, linguistically, the word dwell is what we call the main verb.
34:25
In fact, the word let is not even in Greek.
34:30
The word let dwell is one word, and it is a main verb.
34:37
And it's the idea that Christ's word needs to be in us.
34:46
Christ's word needs to be a part of us.
34:50
It needs to dwell in us, take up residency in our heart.
34:56
And that's the verb.
34:58
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
35:04
And then we have three participles.
35:07
Now, a participle is a word that modifies the main verb and allows you to apply the main verb more accurately.
35:20
So what we have, anytime you see ing on the end of a word, it's often a participle.
35:28
Not always, but it's often a participle.
35:30
And you see three words here that all end with ing, and they are teaching, admonishing, and singing.
35:42
You see them now, right? So the main verb is let the word of Christ dwell in you.
35:48
That's what we're called to do.
35:49
How does the word of God, how does the word of Christ dwell in us? It dwells first by being taught to us, by teaching it, teaching it to one another.
36:02
We are to teach the word of God, and we are to have the word of God taught, because that's how we come to know God's word.
36:09
That's how we come to understand what God's word is to be taught.
36:12
The word of God is what I'm doing to you now.
36:14
Do you think most people care about verbs and participles? That's my whole life, is learning language, because my call in life is to help you understand what this means.
36:29
And if I don't understand, how am I going to teach it? So the dwelling takes place first by teaching, going from not knowing to knowing, that's teaching.
36:43
Second is admonishing.
36:45
Now admonishing is different, because admonishing comes from the word new thoughts, and the word new thoughts really comes from the idea of correction, comes from the idea of confrontation.
36:57
There's something called newthetic counseling.
36:59
I've talked about it before.
37:00
Newthetic counseling is when you challenge someone.
37:03
You don't just let them continue in the direction they're going, but you confront them, and you call them to correction, and you challenge them.
37:10
That's newthetic.
37:11
That's the way that we're supposed to do it, and that's admonishing.
37:15
And let me tell you something.
37:16
If the preaching of God's word doesn't include new thoughts, if it does not include admonishment, then it ain't preaching.
37:22
We're not giving suggestions.
37:25
We are saying, thus saith the Lord.
37:28
That's preaching.
37:30
And so the word of God dwells in us, first by being taught the word of God, and second by being corrected.
37:41
And think about this.
37:42
I shared this with my Sunday school class this morning.
37:44
In the book of James, you remember in the book of James, where he says that if a man comes to the word of God, and he leaves not changed, it's like a man going to a mirror, and he sees himself in the mirror, and he sees the changes that need to be made, but as soon as he leaves the mirror, he forgets and doesn't make any changes.
37:59
I heard this years ago.
38:02
If worship does not change you, you have not worshiped, because that's part of what we do.
38:08
We come to be changed, even if it's just a little, even if it's just a nudge, even if it's just a slight correction.
38:15
We come to be admonished by God's word, and so that's how it dwells within us.
38:23
I tell you what, sometimes it dwells hard, because you get that hard correction, and the preacher says something that's hard, or somebody shares with you a passage from God's word that's hard, and that correction cuts deep, and you don't like it, and you feel like it's a splinter that you want to push out, but you can't.
38:39
It's embedded, and that's how it dwells, and how it changes us, and finally, the last participle is what? Singing, because the word of Christ dwells in us first by being taught, second by being corrected, but also as we sing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, and I'll define that next week.
39:11
We're going to, as I said, two parts at least.
39:13
We're going to really define what a psalm is, what a hymn is, what a spiritual song, and how we understand those distinctions, and why Paul is using this wide birth to describe what we're supposed to do.
39:22
Next week is what we sing, but today is why.
39:24
Why do we sing? Because it's how the word of Christ dwells in us.
39:30
As I said, when I'm, when I'm, when I have nothing to pray, I still can sing the doxology.
39:37
When I have nothing to pray, and I'm spiritually empty, and I've just poured myself out before the Lord, I can still say amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
39:57
Singing is how the word dwells within us.
40:04
I use this phrase, and you probably heard me say it, but I say music has a catechistic quality.
40:16
Catechism was the method of teaching God's word, and for hundreds of years, it has recently fallen on, well, in the last 100 years, more have fallen on more hard times.
40:27
It's beginning to ramp up more in popularity again, but if you don't know what catechism is, a catechism is a list of questions and answers that you memorize with your, with yourself or your children as a way of understanding Christian doctrine.
40:43
In our homeschool group, we were doing the New City Catechism, and we were learning it.
40:47
We were question and answer, and the students would answer the question, and we'd go through the list, but I bring it up because, and I proved it with my class this morning.
41:00
I said, if I start the doxology, and I just said, praise God.
41:36
Oh, I didn't have to put it on the screen, and I know some of you maybe didn't grow up in church.
41:41
Maybe you haven't been a part of this church, and maybe you didn't know that, and that's okay.
41:44
Please don't be offended or hurt by that, but those of you who did, why? Because that word of God is dwelling in you richly because that's how singing does with us.
41:57
Did you know that some of the psalms are actually put together in such a way that they can be memorized through song? Because that's the way we memorize.
42:07
There's something called classic conversations.
42:09
It's a form of teaching where everything is learned through song, because song is a way that we memorize and internalize and learn things, and so singing is a way that the word of God can dwell within us richly.
42:31
So why do we sing? We sing because it's exemplified and commanded in scripture.
42:38
We sing because it is a method that God uses to cause his word to dwell within us, but lastly, and this will be our close, I said earlier, we don't sing just because of worship, but we do sing because of worship.
42:56
We sing because it glorifies God.
43:00
Think about how many times God's word calls us to sing.
43:04
Psalm 96.
43:05
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song.
43:09
Sing to the Lord all the earth.
43:11
Sing to the Lord.
43:12
Bless his name.
43:13
Tell of his salvation from day to day.
43:17
How? Through singing.
43:20
Psalm 9 verse 11.
43:21
Sing praises to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion.
43:25
Tell among the people his deeds.
43:27
How do you tell among the people? Through song.
43:29
That's the context of the passage.
43:32
You sing his praise in the city square.
43:37
Psalm 30 verse 4.
43:39
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.
43:47
Here's the thing.
43:48
Even if singing didn't benefit us at all, it does.
43:52
It's catechistic.
43:54
It's comforting.
43:56
It's powerful.
43:57
It's unifying.
43:58
It has all kinds of benefits for us, but even if it didn't benefit us one bit, we should still do it because God wants it.
44:08
He wants us to.
44:09
He calls us to.
44:10
He commands us to, and therefore if you don't sing, you need to repent.
44:17
Weren't ready for that, were you? No, because I see sometimes just...
44:24
No.
44:25
Beloved, sing.
44:27
Sing for joy.
44:30
Sing to your King.
44:32
Sing of his mighty works.
44:33
Oh, my voice is awful.
44:34
When it's a chorus, nobody cares.
44:36
Ain't nobody handed you a microphone.
44:38
It's all right.
44:40
We sing because it glorifies God.
44:44
We sing because he deserves our prayers.
44:49
We sing because this, and this is a verse to consider, because the Bible says that God inhabits the praises of his people.
45:01
Psalm 22 verse 3, you are wholly enthroned on the praises of Israel.
45:10
God inhabits the praises of Israel.
45:14
Isn't that amazing? Alistair Begg said this.
45:18
He said, why do we sing? We sing because we have something to sing about.
45:23
We sing because we have someone to sing to.
45:28
We have every reason to sing.
45:30
Above all men, above all nations, above all religions, we have something worth singing.
45:37
Praise the Lord that he's given us song.
45:42
Let's pray.
45:44
Father, I thank you.
45:47
I thank you that you have given us songs to sing for you, songs to teach us your word, songs to admonish one another, and songs to be reminded that, Lord, this world, though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for thou hast willed your truth to triumph through us.
46:15
Lord, we have those songs in our hearts, and we are so thankful.
46:21
Lord, lead us now in a time of worship through the participation of communion.
46:27
And, Lord, may our song forever be that Christ our Savior has died for me.
46:34
And it's in his name we pray.