The Importance of God Centered Music

If you would, turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter five. Ephesians, chapter five, and the title of this morning's message is

The Importance of God -Centered Music. The importance of God -Centered

Music. Music plays an important role, very important role in the life of the church, just as it played a very important role in the history of the nation of Israel.

I mean, we have an entire book of the Old Testament dedicated really to music.

And I'm not talking about the Song of Solomon, although we could talk about that too, but I'm referring to the

Psalms. The Psalms have often been called Israel's hymn book or the hymnal of Israel.

So just as you have a book of hymns in front of you in the pew, the children of Israel had a hymn book, so to speak, because they had the book of Psalms.

People of all, God's people have always understood the importance of music, and we know that God can use music.

Music stirs the soul. I don't know about you, but singing Anne Canobie, my soul was stirred.

So the Lord can use music, but of course the devil can use music as well. So we'll talk about that, but let's first read this passage.

Ephesians chapter five, verses 15 through 20. The apostle

Paul writes, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

And do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the

Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so zero in on that statement, those three things, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

So this is what I would call God -centered music. I think we know what the psalms are.

We have the book of psalms, right? 150 individual psalms, which makes up the book of psalms.

And let's just turn to psalm chapter eight, and we'll get an example of what God -centered music in the

Old Testament looked like. Most people, I think, think of the psalms as poetry.

They're just a bunch of poems. Well, right, they were poems, but they were poems that were meant to be set to music.

And most of them, David expresses things that he was going through, and it's okay for us and our music to express our faith and our struggles, but it all lifted up the name of the

Lord in the book of psalms. So here in the Old Testament, we have some God -centered music.

You might ask, what's the difference between a psalm and a hymn? Well, it's believed that the hymns of the apostles' time, that they were different in this sense.

The hymns lifted up the name of Jesus. And of course, the psalms were written before Jesus came.

So there's a distinction. The psalms were one thing. The hymns were songs lifting up the name of the Messiah.

And then the spiritual songs, something else we'll talk about in a second. But look at psalm eight.

Depending on your Bible, it should read something like this at the beginning. The glory of the

Lord in creation to the chief musician on the instrument of Gath, a psalm of David.

Who has that written in their Bible? Raise your hand if you do. Okay, some of you do. So psalm eight was a song, and it was to be played along with this instrument that David took from the land of Gath, Philistine area, probably a harp.

So look at verse one. David writes, oh Lord, our Lord. Notice one's capital and one's not.

Oh Lord, our Lord. How excellent is your name in all the earth. Who have set your glory above the heavens.

And out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength.

So we see how this psalm starts out by praising the name of the Lord. Basically it says, oh

Jehovah, our master. How excellent is thy name.

So God -centered music will always lift up the name of the Lord God, or lift up the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And we have hymns that say similar things about the name of God.

I think the hymn, blessed be the name. That's a great hymn of the faith. After the message, we're gonna sing the hymn majesty, which has the line, lift up on high, what?

The name of Jesus. So here is God -centered music. They have the psalms in the

Old Testament. During the days of Christ and the apostles, they had the hymns, and they would lift up the name of the

Lord as well, and lift up the name of Jesus. And then Paul mentions in chapter five of Ephesians, he mentions this third category of spiritual songs.

Now obviously the psalms are spiritual songs too. The hymns are spiritual, but these spiritual songs are probably a reference to a song of personal testimony.

And there are still people today writing on their guitar, on their piano, songs of personal testimony, still lifting up the name of Christ, but it's what

Christ did for me. So these spiritual songs and hymns are still being written today.

So while the number of the psalms are set to 150, and there's still, who's ever been to a church that sings the psalms?

And maybe we've done it here. You have to, you know, they don't rhyme as well. Translated from Hebrew to English, they don't kind of have the same feel that a hymn does, but there are still churches that sing the psalms.

Matter of fact, there's some churches that sing only the psalms. And they want to make sure, why do they do that?

They want to make sure their music is God -honoring. And if you're only singing the psalms,

I mean, that's pretty much a guarantee, right? Now, we're not of that persuasion. We do accept new music.

I mean, everything in the hymnal is new in the past 500 years. So we're not against, what?

Hey, we accept some new songs too, right? The quartet can attest to that. But the psalms, the point is 150 psalms, set in stone, so to speak.

But Psalm 96, verse one says, "'Sing to the Lord,' what? "'A new song.'"

And to that, I say, amen. I know a lot of people think, maybe they think this of me, or they think this of a church like ours that has a more traditional worship service.

They think, oh, well, Pastor Grant, or people like that that go to Moore's Corner. You know, they just, they only like the old songs.

And some of you, that's probably true. It's true, we do prefer the hymns, because the hymns have been tested by time.

They've been received by the church. They are God -honoring. But if a new song is written and it lifts up the name of the

Lord, then we're open to it. But here's the thing, the music, the new music has to be

God -honoring. So if a song has good theology and it shows reverence,

I think that's a big part of it, then yes, we're open to it. But this is a key element for Bible -believing churches to accept new music.

It must be God -honoring. So we need to test the music.

Do you test the sermons? When you go to a Bible study, do you test what's being taught? You do, right?

We encourage you, come to church with your Bible open and test everything that I say over and against the word of God.

We have to test the music as well. And that's something that oftentimes doesn't happen today. Well, it's music, it's different.

It's not different because music communicates a message. So we need to, I think, test all the new music and we also should consider who wrote it, more on that later.

But let's just look at some more examples of God -honoring music in the Bible. Let's turn to Exodus 15.

This is the song of Moses, Exodus chapter 15. Some more additional information just about music in general in the

Bible. The first time music is mentioned is Genesis chapter four, verse 21.

It talks about Jubal who was the father, it says, of all those who play the harp and the flute.

So he appears to have been the first musician and then he taught others how to play music.

So by the time you get to Moses, around the time of the Exodus, every culture knew of music, had their own music.

And here we get the song of Moses. Let's read Exodus 15, one through six.

It says, then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord and spoke, saying,

I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and its rider, he has thrown into the sea. So this is the song they sang after being delivered through the

Red Sea. Verse two, the Lord is my strength and song and he has become my salvation.

He is my God and I will praise him. My father's God, I will exalt him.

The Lord is a man of what? War. The Lord is his name.

Pharaoh's chariots and his army, he has cast into the sea. His chosen captains also are drowned in the

Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sank to the bottom like a stone.

Your right hand, oh Lord, has become glorious in power. Your right hand, oh

Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces. That sounds a little different than a lot of the praise music of today.

I just want to point that out. I mean, actually in fairness, it sounds different than much of the hymns today.

But we see in this song, the Lord is praised for who he is and what he has done. He not only delivered the children of Israel through the

Red Sea, he absolutely destroyed all of their enemies and they sang this song to bring glory to the

Lord in doing all of that. And perhaps it was the men who sang that song because we see the women in particular singing this other song, the song of Miriam.

Look at verses 20 and 21. It says, then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand.

Just remember that word, timbrel, okay? And all the women went out with her with timbrels and with dances.

And Miriam answered them saying, sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and its rider, he has thrown into the sea. So it looks like the men may have sang one part and then the women would come in and sing.

And then the men, maybe that's not how it happened, but this reminds me of a funeral that I went to in Pennsylvania.

It was at a Mennonite church. And let me tell you, the Mennonites know how to sing. At least this group of Mennonites did.

There was one song, all of the men sang this one part and then on cue, all the women, like every woman in the room was singing.

It was very powerful. The men knew their part and then it would blend together and then their part and then it would go back and forth.

And it was just, it was powerful. And the song was God honoring.

Like I said, it was similar just a few minutes ago singing Anne Kennedy. You get a large group of people together lifting up their voices.

And he wants to lift, she wants to lift up her voice as well. Amen. But you know, you get everyone singing together.

Yeah, it is, it's powerful. It moves the spirit and that's what we want.

This is the type of worship that God deserves. So with that said, let me just encourage you to really sing out the hymns.

I realize some of you, you think, well, my voice isn't very good. Well, my voice isn't that great, but I try to do it.

There are some songs that's easier and the right key, but here's the thing. We want to be participants in worship, right?

This is why we come here on Sunday to worship the Lord. You don't wanna be a spectator.

You want to be a participant in the worship. So when the songs come around, sing them out, do your best.

I mean, being a participant, this is why I like to pray the Lord's prayer. We all do it together.

And then congregational singing, we all sing together. Even the responsive reading, we're all doing it together.

We are participants in worship, not mere spectators. Even the sermon you should have, again,

Bible open, follow along, take notes, participate. So this is very important that we be participants and not spectators.

This is why I like and I tend to fall back on the old hymns because they were written for that purpose.

The hymns are written in such a way where they're meant to be sung along. For congregational singing, very easy to learn.

Some of the, not all of the modern praise music, there are those choruses that are easy to sing along to.

A lot of the modern music though is meant to be performed. It's meant more like entertainment.

You sit back and watch, and a lot of churches are like this. People come and they're watching a show.

Church becomes entertainment. The music is performed and the people are not really participating.

That's not the way that it's supposed to be. But the point here in Exodus 15, this music brought glory to the

Lord. And that is always the most important thing. Something else you notice with this song or these songs in Exodus 15, they almost have like maybe not a military theme, but they have like a theme of battle, right?

And there's a lot of old hymns that have this theme of spiritual warfare, the battle theme.

This element is also missing in a lot of the new music. Over the past generation or two, this has sort of fallen out of favor, the militaristic hymns and the battle theme.

I think it largely due to the Jesus people movement that came out of the 1960s, the flower child generation where it was all about peace and love.

Well, most of the modern music is written with that attitude or it's about peace and love. And listen, peace and love have their place.

Jesus is the Prince of Peace. But yeah, we just don't really appreciate some of this music.

I think of the hymn, Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus. You know, some of these songs that really speak about spiritual warfare.

The battle is the Lord's. Who is on the Lord's side? These are some of my favorite hymns.

I'd just like to read the first and last line for one of these. It says, stand up, stand up for Jesus.

Ye soldiers of the cross, lift high his royal banner. It must not suffer loss.

From victory unto victory, his army shall he lead till every foe is vanquished.

And Christ is Lord indeed. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. The strife will not be long.

This day, the noise of battle. The next, the victor's song. To him who overcometh, a crown of life shall be.

He with the King of glory shall reign eternally.

This is great music. It's God honoring. Just like Exodus 15.

You know, the Jews, they face these physical battles. The church, and you know this, we are engaging in spiritual battles every single day.

And it's becoming more obvious to everybody. So I think we need more songs of spiritual warfare that talk about this battle between good and evil.

It's what we're going through. It's real. Even this hymn that Martin Luther wrote acknowledges the battle of good and evil.

A mighty fortress is our God. He says, a mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing.

Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great. And armed with cruel hate on earth, he is not his equal.

So you have a song like that that does lift up the name of the Lord. It glorifies God, but it also mentions who?

He's talking about the devil here. And speaking of the devil, I said God uses music and the people of God.

We see the importance of music. God can use music. You know, the gospel is communicated in a lot of the hymns.

And it's very possible that someone could have heard a hymn and been saved because the gospel message is in that song.

And this is why I always like Christmas. I mean, a lot of the traditional Christmas songs are glorifying to God.

And that's when some people who never hear that stuff, they hear it around Christmas time. I still think that's a good thing.

But speaking of God using music, the devil can use music as well.

And I'm not saying this about all secular music. Let's be honest, most of you,

I'm sure listen to secular music. I'm not against secular music, depending on the lyrics, okay?

There's some songs that are love songs. You know, there's not really an immoral message.

So I'm not, just to say that, I'm not against all secular music. But at the same time, we recognize that a lot of secular music glorifies evil, doesn't it?

See, that's how the devil uses music to his advantage. So just as Christian music should glorify

God, a lot of secular music, it glorifies what? Drunkenness, drug use, adultery, fornication, rap music.

We know often glorifies violence. It degrades women.

So here's the thing, music is powerful. Once a person's heart is attached to the music, once their heart is for the music, if it's ungodly music, even if it's a

Christian person, all of a sudden they can't be objective anymore because their heart is with this song that's maybe communicating an ungodly message.

We have to be very careful. So the devil can, and I think music is good, but the devil can take music and he can co -opt anything for his own purposes.

Let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 28. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but as far as the devil using music, some people think that the devil was created one of his ministries, one of his purposes, when he was still the holy angel

Lucifer. A lot of pastors, Bible teachers believe that he was associated with music in heaven before he fell.

I mean, it's a disputed point, and depending on your translation of the Bible here in Ezekiel 28, it might read differently, but this is one theory, and I'm not dogmatic about it, but I think this is a good possibility.

Either way, the devil uses music, we know that. Ezekiel chapter 28, we're gonna read from verse 12.

Ezekiel 28, starting verse 12. So Ezekiel is told to take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, but this most likely is more about Satan than it is the actual king of Tyre.

He says, son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, thus says the

Lord God, you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God. Now, was the king of Tyre in the garden of Eden?

No. Who was though? The serpent. Right, every precious stone was your covering.

The sardis, the topaz, the diamond barrel, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.

And here's the verse. The workmanship, speaking of the devil, the workmanship of your, what?

Timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day that you were created.

So the pipes and the timbrels, these are musical instruments. So I said, many pastors and theologians believe that when

Lucifer was created originally, they say he may have acted as heaven's choir director, so to speak.

Commentator John MacArthur says this about Ezekiel 28. This lament over the king of Tyre reached behind to the real supernatural source of wickedness, that is

Satan himself. MacArthur then says the pipes and timbrels could refer to Satan once being in charge of heavenly praise and worship, end quote.

So if that's true and his service was musical, it's logical to think now that he's fallen, he's still using music.

Instead of using music to glorify God's kingdom, now he's using music to glorify the kingdom of darkness and his own agenda of rebellion.

So just a word of caution, we have to evaluate all music. I mean, this message is about God honoring music in the church, but any song that comes on the radio, you know,

I know this is true for me. I mean, I used to listen to music all the time. I played music, you know,

I have a guitar. I like to play a lot of, that wasn't very good. So, you know, I sort of gave it up for a long time and, you know,

I was saved and I stopped, I wasn't really listening to music anymore. I was always, it seemed like I was reading the

Bible and listening to sermons. So that stuff kind of took the place of the secular music. But then years later,

I went back and started listening to some of this music that I loved years ago.

And it's like, did I never notice this in the lyrics or this song, what it's about? And it never bothered me before, because I wasn't saved.

So of course it didn't bother me. But then it's like an eye -opening experience.

So you just have to be careful and evaluate all music because the lyrics teach, okay?

Lyrics teach, just like reading the Bible, it teaches you something. A sermon teaches you something.

Lyrics teach as well. And we also have to examine not only the lyrics, but also the way music makes us feel.

This can be subjective, I suppose, but be very careful, you know, how your spirit reacts to certain types of music.

Different styles can make people feel differently. You know, this is another thing

I don't do anymore, but you know, I was never into horror movies anyways, but if you take a horror movie or some scary

TV show, right? And you take the music away, guess what? It's not scary anymore. It's laughable, it's a joke, right?

It's the music that makes you feel that way. Music can make you afraid.

Music can make you anxious. Music can agitate your spirit.

Music can also soothe your spirit. So music can be sensual, right?

It can really have an impact in the way you think and the way you feel. We need to be very discerning in this day and age.

I mean, I think of David. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, wrote probably half of the

Psalms. You remember when King Saul was tormented by an evil spirit? What did he do?

He called for David to come and play the harp and it soothed Saul's spirit.

More on music in the Bible. It says, Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn after they ate what we call the

Last Supper in Matthew 26. See, to me, that's proof. The hymns are where it's at, right? Even Jesus sang the hymns.

Okay, they were different hymns, but I'm kidding. But James wrote, in James 5, 13, is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

I think it was in Ephesians 5, it talked about sort of having a song in your heart. Don't you know some people, they're very cheerful all the time because yeah, they have a song in their heart.

Music can make you sad, it can make you happy, but it has a way of affecting us and really getting into our mind.

I mean, you know this, you remember lyrics from 40 years ago. You say, well,

I have a real hard time memorizing Bible verses. Well, that may be true, but you remember all the lyrics from back when you were younger.

So it really does stick in your mind. We have to be careful about that. So God can use music, the devil can use music.

We need to make sure the music in the church is God honoring. More and more pastors are starting to recognize this, especially with the new music that hasn't been tested.

When new music comes out, just as everything should be evaluated from the pulpit.

Okay, whatever is preached, you compare it with the Bible. More and more pastors are recognizing we need to do this with all the new praise music, all the new

Christian music that's coming out. We need to examine it as though it were like a sermon.

Look at the words and compare them to the Bible just like you would with a sermon or a

Bible study. This is why more and more churches getting into maybe the application of the message, more and more churches are starting to refuse to sing some of the new music, especially when it has bad theology, depending on who's writing it.

I think if I heard a song and I liked it, that's fine. If you like a song, you'll like the song.

But if you found out it was written by, you know, if you found out a worship song was written by an atheist,

I mean, that might ruin it, right? Well, what am I getting at here?

More and more pastors are recognizing that singing music produced by some of the modern artists, in particular,

North Point, Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation. These would be the four.

These groups are basically word of faith presenting prosperity messages.

These churches themselves, they really capitalize on New Testament Christianity, turning it into a money -making endeavor where the pastor, instead of a shepherd, he's more like a

CEO. There is a great movement right now, and I could tell you the names of churches that will not sing anything from Bethel, Hillsong, or Elevation, or Andy Stanley's North Point.

Why, because the message, sometimes it's not sound in the lyrics, and it's obvious, but it's more of who is writing the lyrics.

You know, here's the problem. People, they listen to the songs, and some of the songs, you know, the lyrics are okay, but their heart gets attached to the music, and the music becomes a gateway into these church movements like Elevation.

So we would never encourage someone to attend one of those churches. So it's best to be discerning when listening and playing the music, because again, music contains words, and words teach.

But let's turn to Philippians chapter two. Philippians chapter two, and we'll close here, but the whole message is about God honoring music.

Another problem with, and I know, it sounds like I'm down on the new music. I'm not, okay? A lot of it's good, and we have accepted new music.

We'll continue to accept new music, as long as, number one, it's what?

God, God honoring. It's reverent, but a lot of the new music, it's man -centered, it's not

God -centered. You know this, most of you know this. The new music, a lot of it is man -centered.

It's all the focus is on me, the focus is on I instead of he and him.

Instead of lifting up the name of the Lord, you're lifting up yourself, and lifting up your own faith in your own faith.

It's like that. We see here in Philippians two, the reason why I wanted to read this, we'll close with this hymn, because many people believe this was one of the first Christian hymns.

Philippians chapter two, verses six through 11, this has often been referred to as the

Carmen Christi, which translated means a hymn of Christ.

So whether or not it was a hymn first, probably Paul wrote it, and then they adopted it as a hymn.

But let's listen to this with our mind, thinking, okay, this is what they would have been singing.

Is this God honoring? Speaking about Christ in verse six, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

This is one of the first things I look for. Does the song contain the cross?

Does the song contain the gospel message? I love the hymns about the blood of Jesus, right?

Isn't that the gospel message summarized, the blood of Jesus, shedding his blood on the cross?

You've heard me tell this story before in the middle of the 20th century. This church was part of a congregational denomination.

That's the way this church started. But in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, the denomination started telling the ministers, do not preach on the blood of Christ.

The blood is offensive. We need a bloodless Christianity. You know what they're trying to do?

They're trying to take the heart and soul of Christianity, the cross, the blood of Christ, and remove it.

And then the church could get on with the real work, not preaching the gospel.

The real work was social justice and making the world a better place when in reality, people were dying and entering into a lost,

Christless eternity. So they wanted to remove the blood of Christ and they took the hymns about the blood out of the hymnal.

Long story short, the church left the denomination, became independent, praise God. We've been independent ever since.

But we see here in Philippians 2, Paul is talking about the cross.

This is the gospel message in verse nine, because Jesus died on the cross and rose again, what?

Verse nine, therefore God also has highly exalted him. Every Christian song should exalt the name of Christ and given him the name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth.

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is what? Lord to the glory of God the

Father. This song, this early hymn is rich in biblical truth.

So in conclusion, that passage contains central elements about Christ, his person, his work.

The music we sing needs to do that, contain the gospel. The person and work of Christ.

I love some of the hymns, it's like a story. Systematically going through the life of Christ, starting in the first hymn with his incarnation or his birth and then ending, the third verse, his death, and then the fourth verse, us spending eternity with him.

When the hymns do that, it's really telling the story of Jesus. But we need to always hold on to that music that lifts up the name of Jesus and be discerning, be discerning about new music that is man -centered and not

God -centered. And certainly any music, if it's glorifying ungodliness, it's something that we should consider.

What would God have me to do? But as far as this church, as long as I'm the pastor here, I'm gonna make sure, and I think you're all on board with this,

I know the quartet does that. We look at the songs, make sure they're God -honoring, amen?

This is the worship God deserves. Let's close in prayer. And Lord, I pray that not just through the music, but through our personal testimony, through our life, that we would bring glory to your name.

But Lord, we thank you for all the men and women in time past who wrote music that was so God -honoring.

And still, Lord, there is a remnant of faithful believers writing wonderful music, exalting the name of Jesus.

That's what we want to do. We want to exalt his name. Lord, if there's someone listening, maybe this is something new.

I just pray that your spirit would open their heart to consider it, consider this.

But also, Lord, if there's someone who's never placed their faith in Jesus, help them to understand that simple gospel message that he died for our sin.

And if anyone would simply put their trust in him in his death, burial, and resurrection, the promise is whoever calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Lord, may you change someone's heart this morning or someone listening later on, that they may trust in Jesus as their personal