Will You Sing To Your God?

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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For those of you who know me well, you know that, or know me at all really, you know that I have an insatiable curiosity for all things related to the history of the church.

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And even more so, probably, an insatiable curiosity for all things related to Reformation church history.

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One of my favorite days on the calendar is Reformation Day. And you hear me often, and without any amount of shyness, remind you, remind us, of the prominent role that Martin Luther played in the birth of the

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Protestant Reformation. You know that I love to tell the story of that bold Roman Catholic monk who ascended the steps to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany, and nailed his 95 theses to that church door for all to read and see and understand and believe and protest.

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And I tell that story not only because I love to tell it, but because I know that many of you love to hear it also.

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I mean, who among us, if you have experienced, discovered for yourself, the scriptural truths of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, who among us can remain unmoved, unstirred when we hear about a man who rediscovered the gospel, when the whole world lived in complete darkness under the cruel dictates of the

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Roman Catholic Church? I love to tell that story. I think many of you love to hear that story, the rediscovery of the gospel, because we love the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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We love that we are saved, that we are justified, that we are made right with God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone.

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And we often recount these events of the Reformation. I am obliged to reiterate the important role that biblical expository preaching played in the maturation of the

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Reformation into a worldwide movement. I've told you these things before.

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I know that you know them. You're getting to know them quite well. But I want to ask you, how many of you would know that the

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Reformation might have never taken off the way that it did if not for congregational singing?

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Isn't that an interesting thought, that singing played a role in the rediscovery and the expansion once more of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

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You see, when we think about the rediscovery of that gospel and the Reformation itself, we're inclined to think of, when

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I think of the Reformation, I picture Martin Luther, with hammer and nail in hand, standing in front of the wooden door in Wittenberg.

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Some of us might think of the lofty pulpit of John Calvin in Geneva, or the primacy of the preached word in the

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Reformation. You would be right to think of all of those things as you think of the Reformation. But how many of us think of the important role that singing played in the complete overhaul of the visible church?

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I think very few of us, oftentimes, when we think of the Reformation, we think of the pulpit and not of the hymnal.

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But as it turns out, singing played an important role in the furtherance of biblical truth during the

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Reformation. And it cannot be overstated, in fact. One biographer of Martin Luther writes this.

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He says, you might think of Luther primarily as a theologian. You might think of Luther primarily as a preacher.

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But he was also a focused and prolific hymn writer, who reinvigorated singing in what became known as the

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Protestant church. And hear this. This is very high praise for singing. This biographer writes,

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Many of Luther's enemies feared his hymns more than the man himself. Singing was at the heart of the

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Reformation. We know, I think, how bold Martin Luther could be. And yet his hymns were feared sometimes even more than his own personality.

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And this is why. You see, at the height of the Reformation, when the Bible wasn't preached, when the word of God wasn't being preached, it was being sung.

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And as the word of God was being sung, it was being distributed to, disseminated by, and remembered among the masses.

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Luther himself highlighted the important role of singing in the Reformation. He said this. And this is probably, if you're writing down a definition for singing, this is a great definition for congregational singing.

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Let God speak directly to his people through the scriptures. Amen. And let his people respond with grateful songs of praise.

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And this is but one example of the non -negotiable importance of singing in the life of the church and in the life of every

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Christian man, woman, and even child. But it could be said today, and I think some of us would agree, many of us would agree, that congregational singing as an act of worship to God has come under hard times.

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In a strange kind of way, singing in the church has never been more emphasized and yet simultaneously less important.

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And this is what I mean. That when we go to those churches that devote most of their time and energy to their music ministries, almost all of the emphasis itself is given to the music, with almost no or very little emphasis at all given to the words that are actually being sung.

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Hours and days are poured into perfecting just the right transition, the right swell of chord progressions to move the emotions.

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And it seems as if almost no time at all, as if it were an afterthought, the words of the song are then added.

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Or perhaps even more nefariously, the words are intentionally vague, intentionally droning, intentionally mind -numbing to manipulate the minds and the emotions of the worshipper.

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As you've heard me say before, it seems that the best music has been written for the worst possible lyrics.

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So that is one side of the equation. And then on the other hand, maybe perhaps more in our camp, many churches that emphasize the bold and clear proclamation of God's Word have discounted the importance of responding to these truths in song.

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And in this setting, there is a glaring contradiction to be found. There is this soaring theology that seeks to bring every listener, as it were, into the very throne room of God.

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But then there is a stunning absence of doxology. All theology and no doxology.

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Something is terrifyingly wrong when these towering truths of the triune

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God, of the justification of sinners, gives way to dull and bored worship.

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There are these two opposite extremes. On one side, shallow emotionalism, and on the other side, there is this bibliocentric but frozen chosen.

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And one theologian rightly assessed the situation when he said that there is no part of worship more in need of reformation today than congregational singing.

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No part of our worship in greater need of reformation than congregational singing.

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And as we turn our attention to this topic today and to this passage in Ephesians 5, that is exactly what

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I am after for this church. What I am after for you. Dear church, we are still in much need of reformation when it comes to congregational church singing.

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We are reformed by God's grace, it is true. I am grateful that we have a long list of songs that we love to sing, that are jam -packed with the truth of the gospel and of who

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God is. And yet, we affirm semper reformanda, always reforming.

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We are always in need of being further reformed according to the word of God. Because many of us still entertain unbiblical ideas about worship.

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For some of you, you are all doxology and no theology. You want to sing, you want to feel good, you don't want to have to think too hard about it.

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For others of you, you need to be admonished not only to study, but to sing to the

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God of your studies. And for others still, some of you need to be exhorted to abandon your timidity, to get rid of all of your self -consciousness and to sing to God.

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And to sing loudly, to sing boldly, to sing joyfully. And today, as we look at this passage, we are going to see how

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God intends us to worship Him through congregational worship. Like we did last week, we are going to start off in Ephesians chapter 5, and then necessity compels us to go beyond Ephesians 5.

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To look at a variety of verses, to develop a well -rounded view of what it means to worship

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God through singing. And I'm going to set before you, and I promise it's eight brief principles for reforming our congregational singing.

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You know that I like to preach puritanical sermons. I have underlined brief in my own notes to remind me that they are going to be brief principles.

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The first one will be the longest, just because it is foundational. And then we'll find that they are briefer after that.

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So let's turn our attention again to Ephesians chapter 5, and verse 18. And the first principle that I want to put before you is this, there in the handout in your notes, is sing because God commands it.

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Oh, we sing because God commands it. When a young man or a young woman or an old man or an old woman, perhaps a new

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Christian, asks a new believer, asks a more experienced believer, why do we sing in church?

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There's almost a myriad of reasons that might be given. If you were to think about it, if a new believer were to come to you and ask you, why do we sing in the church?

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How would you answer them? What is the principal reason that we sing in the worship of God?

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For some people, they might say, well, we sing because we want to sing songs of worship to our

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God. Others might say that we sing because we have hymnals that are full of truth about God, and we want to relay those to God.

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Others, and I would expect that if we were to go to a worship conference this afternoon and ask all the crowds as they come out from learning about worship, if we were to ask them, why do we worship

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God? Some of them might say that it's just what we do. It's because that's what we do when we go to church, is we sing.

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That's what my parents did, and that's what my grandparents did, and so we sing. But when we look at Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18, this is what we read, and we'll read it together.

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And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the

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Lord in your hearts. What we see is that we sing not as a matter of preference, but as a matter of Christian obedience.

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The reason why we sing every Sunday in this Lord's Day service is because God has commanded us to sing.

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Some of us need to hear this. We sing not because we feel like it, or we don't sing because we don't feel like it.

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It's not because songs are good and true, as important as that is. It is not because it is in our order of worship, but we sing because God has commanded us to sing.

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To sing good, biblical songs to God is to obey God, and to refuse to sing good and true songs about God is to rebel against God.

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One commentator has pointed out that there are, in our 66 books of the Old and New Testament, 400 indirect references to singing.

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A massive number. And over and above those 400 references, there are 50 plus direct imperatives.

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When I say an imperative, I mean a command. 50 plus commands for God's people to sing.

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And so when we regulate our worship according to God's Word, we are compelled to sing by divine edict.

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The pages of Scripture, and especially the Psalms, constrain us to sing.

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And so I speak to you already, those of you who think to yourself, I don't really like to sing.

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Or sometimes I come to church and I don't feel like singing. In God's Word, in Psalm 47 .6,

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it says this. For those of you who don't feel like singing on the Lord's Day, sing praises to God.

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Sing praises. Sing praises to our King. Sing praises. Four exhortations in one verse.

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Some of you adults or children, children in the room, if you think to yourself, but I'm not even sure if I'm a believer yet.

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Should I sing? I'm not sure where I stand with God. Does He really want to hear my voice?

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Psalm 96 .1 says, O sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the

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Lord all the earth. Believers and unbelievers alike are commanded to sing praises to God.

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And our brother read the parallel passage that Paul put to the Colossians. In Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16.

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And what did he say there to them? But let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

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We would say, Amen. Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing.

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Yes. But he adds to this as part of the ministry of the word in the church. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

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Brothers and sisters, we are a singing people. As odd as that might be for a new convert, because God has commanded us to sing.

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I recall when we were preparing to plant this church, we had a dear brother who was counseling us in some ways on how we should plant and what steps we should take.

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And one of the things that he said to me early on that seemed rather odd to me was,

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Well, perhaps you don't sing at first, because a lot of unbelievers find singing to be an odd thing.

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And so do a Bible study. Pray. Do all of those things. Maybe save singing to last. I love that brother, but that was bad counsel.

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Because God has commanded us to sing. And we must not entertain any internal compulsion or any external edict that would prohibit us from praising

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God with our voices in song. Recently, I was reading about the

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Methodist movement. For some of you, you probably are aware with the Methodists and John and Charles Wesley.

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When we sing, And Can It Be, it was written by Charles Wesley, the brother of John Wesley, who was the figurehead of the

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Methodist movement. And John Wesley, the more and more, I did quite a bit of reading about him this summer for school.

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And the more and more you read about him, the more you realize he was kind of an odd duck at certain points.

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And two of the things that he would put to his circuit riders. He would have circuit riders that would go on horses and go from village to village preaching.

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You see, he had two rules for them. Number one, you should not shout when you're preaching. Apparently, that was a problem.

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I'm not sure if what I do is shouting. But you were not to shout. Explicitly not to shout.

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And the second thing that he insisted during the meeting of the church was this. That there was never, ever, ever to be more than two hymns sung during the church service.

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The church could meet, there must be preaching, there might not be hymns at all. But if you're going to do hymns, no more than two.

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And we know this because one of his letters is recounted from a letter that he was writing to two rebellious preachers who were singing more than two songs during worship.

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And he said this. Now these are feisty words. He said, if you do not choose to obey me, you need not.

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I will let you go when you please and send other preachers in your place. If you choose to stay with me, never sing more than twice.

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Once before the sermon and once after the sermon. Such a command,

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I would suggest, betrays John Wesley's poor understanding of singing as a biblical command.

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We must never let some decree in the church prohibit us from singing.

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Nor should we let any impulse in our heart prohibit us from singing. But there are more modern examples.

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You might think, who then would prohibit us from singing today? You might remember a few years ago, during the

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COVID -19 pandemic, that in some jurisdictions, the authorities said that you can meet to read the

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Bible, to preach the Bible, to pray the Bible, even to celebrate the

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Lord's Supper. But you cannot. Good job, buddy. But you cannot sing the word of God for one reason or another.

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And I'm not trying to get too political. But in situations like that, what we see is the same mindset that we see within the church.

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That the Bible is essential. That prayer is essential. That the Lord's Supper and baptism are essential.

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But that singing is an optional add -on. And that is not the case. That is simply not the case.

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I will say this on the recording. I will put it on the internet. That if COVID comes back and we are commanded not to sing, my brothers and sisters, we will sing.

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Because God has commanded us to sing. In such situations, we have to say with Peter and John, as they said to the

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Sanhedrin in Acts 4, 19 and 20, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must be the judge, for we cannot but speak, or we cannot but sing what we have seen and heard.

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So, brethren, we must sing. We are commanded to sing, both for God's glory and for our good.

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Principle number two. We are to sing in the Spirit. Ephesians 5, 18 says,

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And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the

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Spirit. When every Christian assembles on the Lord's Day, we have a responsibility to be filled with the

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Spirit. It is interesting that this is, again to use that word imperative, this is an imperative command of God to every

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Christian to be filled with the Spirit. Now, what does that mean? What it means is that when every

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Christian assembles on the Lord's Day, we have a responsibility to prepare ourselves in advance to sing

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God's praises. Unlike the world, which intoxicates itself with alcohol and drugs and media and a thousand other vices, we are to obey this imperative to be filled with the

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Spirit of God. In order for us to sing God's excellent praises, you could say that we must be spiritually topped up, as it were.

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And some of you might say, I know that if you've heard John MacArthur preach on this particular topic, you will say, how can we be filled with the

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Spirit? We have already been filled with the Spirit. How can someone who is filled with the Spirit be any more filled with the

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Spirit? While I don't like to pit two friends against each other, I'll quote from R .C.

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Sproul, who I think explains this idea quite well. He says, while the sealing of the

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Spirit is a once -for -all initiation into the Christian life, the filling of the

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Spirit is progressive and is to be sought on an ongoing basis.

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The one who is filled with the Spirit is filled with Christ and with God and with His Word.

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And he says, the command to sing in verse 19, R .C. Sproul writes, is dependent on the imperative to be filled with the

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Holy Spirit. There is not a Christian in this room who does not have the Spirit of God.

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Absolutely. But there are degrees to which we can be filled with that Spirit.

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That is why Christ says in Luke 11, verse 13, that we are to ask the Father to give us the

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Holy Spirit, and He will give it. And so what that means, brethren, is that we have the responsibility as Christians, meeting to worship

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God, not to roll out of bed at 2 p .m., to come unprepared, disheveled, spiritually speaking, into this privileged place of corporate worship.

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But we would be well, we would do well to come to the corporate gathering of the church and to expect, to anticipate, to prepare for the corporate singing of the church in almost the same way that a professional athlete would approach game day with that hyper -intense sense of intentionality.

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If you were to ask an athlete how they get ready for a game day, they would not tell you that they get ready one hour before the game.

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Preparation for game day does not begin the morning they wake up on game day. It does not even begin the day before game day.

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But it is a consistent life lived in preparation for every game. And so, with every

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Christian, this is not a game. This is the worship of the living God.

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I promise you, there is no televised sporting event on TV that is as important as this meeting amongst this local church on this day.

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And what that means is that we must live a Spirit -filled life, walking with the

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Lord in the Spirit every day. And then certainly, before game day, before the day that we meet, getting a good night's sleep, eating a healthy breakfast, even unspiritual things like that, preparing our bodies for worship, being prayed up, being read up in our

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Bibles, coming to the worship of God's people with a clear conscience. As John Calvin put it, he said, we should be spending our lives in the study and exercise of praising

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God. And when we have done that, then we will sing. I think many of us would agree that the times when we get the most out of worship are the times when we come the most prepared.

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I know for me, even when I'm not preaching, the times when the preaching is most impactful as I listen are the days when

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I have come prepared to hear the preaching. The days when singing has been most impactful are the days in which

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I have come prepared. And to quote MacArthur positively in the same point as R .C.

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Sproul, he says, the Spirit -filled life produces music. Whether he has a good voice or cannot carry a tune, and that is some of you, the

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Spirit -filled Christian is a singing Christian. Nothing is more indicative of a fulfilled life, a contented soul, and a happy heart than the expression of song.

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And so come, filled with the Spirit, and sing. The third principle that I want to look at is this, to sing truth.

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In Ephesians 5 .19, we're not commanded to sing just anything. You'll notice that.

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That Paul does lay out some parameters. That we are constrained to sing,

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Paul says, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And what this means is that God has given us tremendous freedom not only to sing the word of God back to him in the psalms, which we ought to do and which

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I hope to do more frequently in our church here, but also to sing our own words of praise and adoration to him.

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What a gift that is, that God not only wants to hear his own words sung back to him, but that he wants to hear the words and the melodies of our hearts as well.

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But let me say, with such a privilege comes such a weighty responsibility.

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This does not mean then that we have license to sing anything that we want to about God.

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Things that are true, things that are untrue, things that are askew. But what it means is that we are to sing that which is true and honoring and pleasing to God.

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And yet we find, I think, real danger in this fallen world in which we live in this particular category.

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We must be careful to be selective with every single song that we sing.

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Carefully selecting this song and not this song. Sometimes this verse and not this verse.

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Sometimes you will find that we have hymnals in our grace hymnal that also appear in our blue hymnal.

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And you ask the question, why do we sing the song in the grace hymnal and not the song in the blue hymnal? And the reality is because that word in that verse isn't true.

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And so we will not sing it. And it's in the public domain, so we will change it. And we will sing what is true.

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Christ, anticipating this challenge, as he spoke to the woman at the well in John 4 .24, he said,

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God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit, as we just said, and in truth.

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We must worship God in spirit and in truth. Just as we cannot truly worship God apart from the spirit, apart from being spirit -filled, we cannot worship him apart from the truth.

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And in fact, to worship God not in accordance with the truth is to not worship God at all.

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We must be very selective. And this is why we will never sing.

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And I've spoken to people here who have been disappointed with this decision, and for some of you this is music to your ears.

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We will never sing Hillsong. We will never sing Bethel music. We will never sing a song that is published by a group that promotes heresy, either in their songs or as part of the teaching that is connected to their music ministry.

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Regardless of how moving it is, how appealing it is, how often it is on rotation on the Christian radio station, we will sing only that which is true.

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And why? Because truth matters. Because remember, we are not here to promote an experience for the worshipers.

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We are not here for a worship experience. We are here to worship the true and living

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God, in spirit and in truth. And another important detail, that we are taught, we learn, perhaps more.

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I love preaching, I think it's very important, but I'm not afraid to admit you probably learn more from the songs that we sing in our hymnals than you do from the sermons.

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Ten years from now, you will not remember this sermon, but you will remember the words of some of the hymns that we were singing.

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As a matter of fact, you could probably recite several verses verbatim, because what we sing is what we learn.

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And singing is an important teaching ministry in the church. In 1

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Timothy 3, verse 16, and there are a ton of these in our Bibles, but in 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, here is an example of one.

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It says, He is there, great indeed we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the

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Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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Why does that have such a rhythm about it? Because it was a New Testament hymn in the church.

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It was a hymnic poem that the church would have known and recited. And we have a number of these, because we learn from the songs that we sing.

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And therefore, not only is it important that we sing true words to God, but that we sing true words to one another.

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You've heard me say before, some of you haven't, I'm sure, that if I were left on a lonely, deserted island in the middle of the

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Pacific, and I were given only two books, which books would I bring? What books would you bring to that lonely, deserted island?

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You can tell I read a lot from our modern Reformation guys, because I'm going to quote R .C. Sproul again. He said, the first book that he would bring is how to survive on a desert island, or deserted island.

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But in all seriousness, what books would you bring? Many of you know my answer.

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The first book I would bring is a Bible. God's revealed truth to the

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Christian, how we are to know and love and live for God. And the other book that I would bring, perhaps

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I would pick the Trinity hymnal, maybe not this hymnal, but a good hymnal. Why is that,

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Shane? Because in the Bible, we see God's truth revealed to us through his word.

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And as a response to that revelation, we sing back the truth of God's word in praise to him.

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And that seems like a bit of an exaggeration. When I really bring a hymnal, I would say, I think

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God is wiser than us, he is wiser than me, and he has sought to include his own hymnal within the pages of the

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Bible. In fact, the largest book of the Bible, the book of Psalms, all 150 chapters were the psalm book, the hymn book of the nation of Israel.

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So we sing the truth. Number four, we sing the gospel. Perhaps this goes without saying, but the crowning jewel of all of our praises, the crowning jewel of every song that we sing to God, is

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Jesus Christ, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Another one of those hymns that we find in the pages of Scripture, and there are so many,

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I just don't know which ones to highlight. Philippians 2 is one, speaking about the humiliation of Christ.

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I picked Colossians 1 in this instance. Colossians 1 verse 15, you'll know this. He is the image of the invisible

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God. The firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities.

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All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things. And in him all things hold together.

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Hear this part. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And it goes on to speak about what

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Christ has done and his sacrifice for us. This was an early

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Christian hymn, broken up into two stanzas, beginning in verse 15, and then in verse 18b.

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Why? Because the early church saw fit to sing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Because every day, no matter how prepared you are to be here, how spirit -filled you are, every single one of us needs to hear, to preach, and to sing the gospel to ourselves.

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You're going to think I'm picking on this group, but I just need to use contrast for the sake of clarity. If you go to some churches, and I'm not going to criticize them, but if you go to some churches where you sing

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Oceans by Hillsong, tell me, when you need the gospel, are these words going to feed your soul?

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You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where my feet may fail, and there

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I find you in the mystery. In the oceans deep my faith will stand, and I will call upon your name, and keep my eyes above the waves.

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When oceans rise, my soul will rest in your embrace, for I am yours, and you are mine.

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These words paired with the music of that song certainly have a moving effect if you're just sitting listening to the music.

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But if you're interested in the truth of what you are singing, what hope does this offer to the man or the woman who comes to church miserable because of your own sin?

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When you are feeling like you have no assurance, when it seems that the

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Lord couldn't possibly save a sinner like you, you don't need to sing about looking above the waves and being embraced by some ethereal individual that is never named either as God or as Jesus Christ.

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But when you're grieved by your own pervasive sinfulness, and you need to be lifted out of the mire, we need to sing songs like, there is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilt and stains.

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When your life is racked with suffering, and you don't know up from down, you need to be like Horatio Spafford as he stood in the boat looking into the sea where his children had drowned a week earlier and say, my sin, my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the

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Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul, it is well with my soul.

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We need songs about the gospel. Every week, we might be preaching a passage from Numbers and looking at a genealogy or a list of names.

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I'm telling you that Sunday, we are gonna preach about Jesus Christ, because you need to hear it, and I need to hear it,

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I need to sing it, and you need to sing it. Isaac Watts, who is a famous hymn writer, he lived in the 1600s, he went to a church where they would sing either exclusive psalmody, so psalms alone, or really rough translations of those psalms.

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And Cotton Mather, who is an important figure in the Puritan movement, he's written a lot of good things, but one of the songs that they would sing in Isaac Watts' church, imagine singing this on a

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Sunday. Children, imagine singing this. Ye monsters of the bubbling deep, your maker's praises sprout, up from the sands ye codlings peep, and wag your tails about.

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Isaac Watts, in the 1600s, was singing these songs going, what in the world?

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How do I praise God with this? And one day he remarked to one of his fellow church members, he was 18 years old, that he could not connect with the hymns.

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And the man said, in as many words, he said, give us better, young man. And so that evening, at that evening worship, the church sang an original song from Isaac Watts.

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And that song was the first among many. When we sing joy to the world, when

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I survey the wondrous cross, Jesus shall reign. Oh God, our help in ages past.

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We are singing Isaac Watts. And listen to this, perhaps, one of his jewels amongst his repertoire of hymns.

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Alas, and did my savior bleed? And did my savior die? Picture this, living in a world where we sing about croaking and wagging our tails.

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And did my savior die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

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Well might the sun in darkness hide and shut his glories in when Christ the mighty maker died for man the creature's sin.

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This might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears. Dissolve my heart in thankfulness and melt my eyes with tears.

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One last verse I'll read. But drops of grief can ne 'er repay the debt of love I owe.

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Here, Lord, I give myself away to all that I can do. To sing of what

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Jesus Christ has done for you and for me is what we must do every Sunday of the year, every day of the week, every hour of the day.

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Number five. We sing. Sing when you don't feel it. There are going to be days when you come to the gathering of the saints and you don't feel it.

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For those of you who are married, maybe you can think of exact moments when you have had just a rotten day with your spouse.

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And you have been impolite and impatient and rude and you have felt that way from your spouse and you have certainly given that to your spouse.

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And you pull up in front of the church and you say, what a bunch of hypocrites we are.

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That we have just been at each other all morning and now we're going to go sing praises to God? Let me tell you, on days like that, that is exactly what you need to do.

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I remember one particular Sunday very well about ten years ago where Nicole and I sat bickering back and forth at each other in front of the church and we decided we're not going today.

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We're just not in the right frame of mind. What we needed exactly on that day was to sing

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God's praises. Not out of hypocrisy, but out of necessity. Psalm 42 .11

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says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Remember, this is a psalm. This is a song of Israel.

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The psalmist is singing this to himself. Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?

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Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my

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God. That's why we need to sing songs like, Arise, my soul, arise!

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Shake off your guilt and fear. The bleeding sacrifice on your behalf appears.

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Before the throne of God my surety stands. Before the throne of God my surety stands and my name is written on his hands.

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The man Henry David Thoreau said, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

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Praise God, that doesn't describe every Christian or most Christians most of the time.

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And yet, there are times when we will come to church leading a life of quiet desperation.

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And what do we need to do but to sing the word of God and the praises of God amongst his people.

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Over a third of the psalms can be categorized as laments. Over and over again these psalms,

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Keith Getty says this, they face us to the sharpest pains. And he says,

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None of us comes with everything figured out. We need to sing songs that recognize these realities without leading us to the despair of those realities.

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Because they lead us to the rock that is higher than us. Some of you have heard of the woman

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Johnny Erickson Tada. When she was 18 years old she was diving head first into the

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Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. A young, vivacious, athletic woman. At 17 she dove into the

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Chesapeake Bay not knowing that the water was much more shallow than she realized.

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And when she landed she broke her back between her fourth and her fifth vertebrae rendering her a quadriplegic paralyzed from the neck down.

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And for years following that event she dealt with severe depression, crippling depression, suicidal thoughts, all kinds of hardships.

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And then one day she realized something that we need to realize when we come to church and we are not feeling it.

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She said, my weakness is that my quadriplegia and it is my greatest asset because it forces me into the arms of Christ every single morning when

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I wake up. And Getty, Keith and Kristen Getty said of Johnny Erickson Tada they said one of the ways that she has done this is to sing.

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We can't remember a time being with Johnny where she didn't lead those people around her in singing.

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She loves to sing the gospel. Loves singing songs old and new and loves to sing of heaven in particular.

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And one of her favorite hymns to sing is the hymn Abide With Me by Henry Francis Light.

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There it says, Abide with me. Fast falls the even tide. The darkness deepens.

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Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee helper of the helpless oh abide with me.

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When we don't feel like singing we must sing most of all. And not singing some empty mushy song that means nothing that says nothing but singing deep, rich, robust truths about God.

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Number six. We're on the home stretch. We must sing all the attributes of God.

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When we look at the Psalms it is in the Psalms indeed that we find one of the richest depositories of all of the attributes of God.

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If someone came to me and said I want to know all of the attributes of God in one book where should

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I go? Without hesitation. Go to the Psalms. Go to what the nation of Israel sung about their

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God. I was recently talking with my wife about experiences that I've had in broader

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Christian circles. I told Sam a little bit about this earlier today that I was in a meeting

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I won't name the name of the church but in a meeting in a very large church in our city one of the largest for sure and I can't help but notice the cavalier attitude that people have toward God.

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Not primarily in their singing not in the way they read their Bibles but maybe you'll understand this with me but in their praying.

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The way that people approach God. We are, brothers and sisters we are to have a level of familiarity with God where we can come to Him as one comes to a friend absolutely and yet I sometimes feel when

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I'm part of these groups that when these men and women pray it's like they're approaching one of their buddies that they're going to spend

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Friday night with watching the game or playing a video game. There's a characteristic lack of reverence in their praying.

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Could it be could it be that this is not only because of a famine of biblical preaching in the land but because of a famine of biblical singing in the land also that we often sing about God's mercy of God's love of God's grace but never of God's wrath never of God's justice never of God's immutability never of His omnipotence and His transcendence but if we were to look at passages like Revelation chapter 5 there we have a scene of all of the angels and the saints the dead saints worshiping

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God together and it gives us in Revelation 5 what I would call a a fulsome image of the attributes of Christ that in that imagery we see two things we see

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Jesus Christ as the meek Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world and in that same image in that same song we see

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Jesus Christ the Lion of the tribe of Judah great and terrible in His might

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O the Holy Son of God Himself and they sang together worthy are you in Revelation 5 worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals for you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom of priests to their

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God and they shall reign on the earth the church needs to sing songs we need to sing songs that comfort and uplift that embolden and that revive yes but we also need to sing songs that make us fall on our faces before the throne of an awesome and holy

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God we must sing songs that as we sing them we exclaim quietly in our heart it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God it reminds me of an interaction that C .S.

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Lewis describes in one of his books in the Chronicles of Narnia series kids, who of you have read

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or your parents have read it to you my kids are not raising their hands I've read you that book and in that book in that book what's really interesting is

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C .S. Lewis brings us to this part of the story where the children meet a pair of beavers and these beavers begin to explain maybe you remember this part of the story explain

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Aslan the king of Narnia and Mrs.

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Beaver tells Susan she says, he is the king of the wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea

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Aslan is a lion the great lion and Susan asked fumbling in her words is he quite safe I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion kids, how would you feel if I were telling you you would be meeting a lion after today's service

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Mrs. Beaver responded if there is anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking then they are either braver than most or else they are just silly then he isn't safe Lucy asked

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Mrs. Beaver said, safe? of course he isn't safe but he is good he is the king

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I tell you and such is the case with our God oh we worship a good

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God a good God who we can approach as our friend but let us not be mistaken in the sight of God now we worship a dangerous

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God that we worship a holy God and that we worship a God that at times we ought as we sing about him our knees should be near to knocking as we sing holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God almighty as we sing about as we were singing earlier immortal, invisible

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God only wise all of the attributes of God His holiness, His sovereignty, His wrath

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His immutability, His love, His grace His patience we sing about the love of God and we sing about the transcendent majesty of God number seven we sing with God isn't that interesting why does the

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Lord command us to sing? because He is a God Himself who sings you might ask where?

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show me that in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 12 we read there speaking of Christ He says,

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I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise it's quoted from Psalm 22 and of that F .F.

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Bruce says this, he says the first quotation is taken from a psalm in which no

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Christian of the first century would have failed to recognize that Christ is the speaker and Bob Coughlin says why does

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God so often tell us not simply to praise Him but to sing His praises when we meet why not just pray and preach why sing?

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why are God's people throughout all of history always singing he says this, one reason is that God Himself sings in Zephaniah 3 .17

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it says that God exalts over His people with loud singing you want to be godly in this room you want to be like Christ then sing then sing on the night when

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Christ was betrayed about nine hours before He would go to the cross, talk about coming to a place where you might not feel like singing, where you might feel miserable, what did

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He do? Matthew 26 .30 says, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the

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Mount of Olives, that Jesus Christ sang to God, and so should you and then last of all, number 8 my favorite perhaps, my favorite admonishment to all of you sing loud sing loudly

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Ephesians 5 .19 if we can land where we started, says that we are to address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs making melody to the

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Lord in our hearts if God can hear the melody in our hearts then why do we need to sing why do we need to raise our voices if He knows what is happening in our hearts why does it need to exit our mouth and why does it need to exit our mouth loudly because we also are to sing to the glory and praise of God, yes but to the benefit and edification of the brothers and the sisters that are sitting next to you in our chairs it says in Psalm 103 .1,

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bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name, all that is within me imagine for a second that a man is standing on a beach and his child is drowning and he sees a lifeguard boat 10 feet away and he were to call out with all that is within him would he mutter would he mumble under his breath a mighty fortress is our

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God help my son would you please help my son he's over there when you say, when you praise when you sing with all that is within you it means all of the breath that God has put in your lungs, you now push it back out in praise to God in Revelation 5 .11

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and 12 it says as they were addressing, worthy is the Lamb who is slain, it said that they were saying with a loud voice, there is a day, it's coming soon when you will not be able to sing at the top of your voice anymore when health, or your failing health will take that from you some of you are there perhaps, this is not to condemn you, you make a joyful noise to the

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Lord in your heart but for those of you who have a voice and can sing one day you will no longer have that voice, and so use it today, serve the

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Lord in your youth, serve him with the lung capacity that he has given you now

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Psalm 100 says make a joyful noise to the Lord in other translations it says, shout to the

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Lord, all the earth serve the Lord with gladness come into his presence with singing, know that the

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Lord he is God, it is he who made us, we are his, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise give thanks, bless his name for the

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Lord is good his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations like many of you, when

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I travel to different cities almost more than going to the attractions in that city,

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I want to go to the churches in that city, I don't know about you when my wife is booking the flights

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I am on the founders website or another website looking at the map, what churches can we go to and one of the things that I have found almost invariably is that the healthiest churches the churches where they preach expositorily through the

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Bible, where Jesus Christ is treasured, where the doctrine is the purest where the fellowship is the sweetest, are also the churches that sing the loudest that you can sit there and it is like, we're a small group so when you go to a church where there's 500 people or 300 people it's like, this must be what heaven is like to hear these voices, when people come to our church, do they have that experience, they say boy they love to preach the

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Bible, they love to pray the fellowship was sweet how was the singing Spurgeon once had a conversation with a woman after he was preaching, some of you

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I'm sure have heard the story before and he said that he was a debtor to divine grace and he said so because he was the greatest debtor to divine grace, he would sing the loudest and as he came down from his pulpit an old woman in her late years came up to him and said

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Mr. Spurgeon you made a big mistake in your sermon and he said well

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I'm sure I made a dozen mistakes but what is the one that you have in mind and she said you said that you will sing the loudest she said you are but a young lad and you have not sinned nearly as much as I have and so you are much less a debtor to divine grace than I am

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I am a far greater debtor and I will not let you sing the loudest from now on then let us compete in singing the loudest and to compete for who here is the greatest debtor of divine grace brethren when

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I tell us we are to sing like Christians what is it that I mean it means sing loud for the glory of God to the praise of the

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God who saved you a debtor of divine grace every time you sing

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Keith Getty writes every time you sing you are expressing either something about what kind of church you want to be or what kind of church member you are going to be let us be a church that sings so in closing my brothers and sisters

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I will pose a question to you that one Welsh revival preacher posed to someone who wanted to help him in his revival meetings he said to them will you sing will you lift will you use this gift and grace from the creative hand of God to glorify him or will you save your voice for some other fleeting pleasure like the football game like the hockey game like the rock concert will you cherish theology and yet neglect doxology or in the words of Luther will you let

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God speak directly to you through the scriptures and then respond with grateful songs of praise will you sing to your

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God about the glories of his majesty and the terrors of his wrath and the wonders of the gospel of Jesus Christ or will you let others lead the way in singing fervently about almost nothing at all will you sing to your