What Should We Sing?

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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June 11, 2023

00:02: Well, if you have your Bibles, I would invite you to turn to Colossians chapter 3 and go to verse 16.
00:21: If you're visiting with us today, you are now on the second half of a two-part sermon.
00:30: So I will briefly try to bring everyone up to speed as to where we are, but just keep in mind that we are also in a longer series on the study of the book of Colossians.
00:46: The book of Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul as a letter to a church that he had never been to before.
00:55: He did not plant the church.
00:57: We believe that the church was planted most likely by a man named Epaphras, who had probably heard the gospel from the Apostle Paul, most likely in Ephesus.
01:08: Ephesus is a distance away to the east or to the west of where Colossae was.
01:18: Colossae is in a tri-city area, Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae were in a place called the Lycus River Valley, and this man, Epaphras, most likely heard the gospel from Paul, went back to the church and began, or went back to his hometown, began to preach the gospel, planted a church there, and now Paul is writing to that church, having received a message from Epaphras about the church, and many of the things that Paul says about the church in Colossae are positive things, good things, encouraging things.
01:53: In fact, I would say the first half of the first chapter is all really words of praise for the Colossians and prayers for them, but he is also concerned, he's concerned about false teachings that are creeping into the churches, the false teachings that we've talked about are things like Jewish mysticism, Gnosticism, syncretism, all of these different things that had begun to creep in, and so the latter half of chapter one and most of chapter two deals with those things, and now we come and we are in chapter three and we see Paul is now admonishing or encouraging the people of Colossae as to how they are to behave as the people of God.
02:35: How are we to live as the people of God? And Paul has given us an analogy, and the analogy is the putting off and the putting on, and he's talked about putting, like if you imagine putting off a robe or putting off a garment, he has talked about putting off worldly things, evil things, sinful things, and to put on virtues that are Christ-like, and the virtues that we have looked at over the last several weeks, the virtues of love, which is the primary virtue, the virtue of kindness and patience and all of these other things which we see Paul talking about, these are the virtues that we are to put on as believers.
03:21: And then he gets to chapter three, verse 16, and he says that there are, there is one thing that we ought to do as believers, and that is that we ought to have the word of Christ dwelling in us, and then he tells us how that happens.
03:40: So, we're going to stand together, we're going to read chapter three, verse 16, and this will be our focus for today.
03:53: In Colossians chapter three, verse 16, the apostle Paul writes this, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
04:16: Let's pray, Father, I ask even now that as we understand and seek to understand your word that you would keep me from error, that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth, and Lord, if there are those here today who do not know you, Lord, that you would give them the gift of faith that comes from the work of your spirit, that they would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I pray this in his name, amen.
04:50: So in this passage, we left off last week by talking about the three participles that are connected to the main verb of the passage.
05:02: The main verb of the passage is the word in English that we translate as dwell.
05:11: You'll notice in English it says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
05:18: Well the word let and the word dwell is actually one word in the Greek.
05:23: Oftentimes we have to translate Greek words by multiple English words because of the way that Greek is constructed, and so the term let dwell, which is a command, it's an imperative, it is telling us what we are to do, and that's what this passage is about.
05:40: It's about us letting the word of God dwell in us, and it could be translated also to dwell among us.
05:50: That's another point that I focused last week on the fact that we want the word of Christ to dwell within the believer, and that's true, but we also want the word of Christ to dwell among the people of God as we gather as the people of God.
06:05: We want the word of God to be the focus of why we are here.
06:09: The word of God should be the very centerpiece of our worship.
06:16: In fact, if you've never noticed, Protestant architecture is very specific, and you'll notice that in most churches that are Protestant, you will find the table of the Lord is in the center.
06:38: You'll find also the pulpit is in the center, and if you're a Baptist, you'll have a big bathtub in the center.
06:49: Now if you're not, you may have a little birdbath somewhere.
06:52: That's a tease to my Presbyterian brethren, but they have a little fount that's somewhere around the center, and the idea is that we focus our attention on these things.
07:07: We focus our attention inward and onward on those things that are important, and one of the things that is often found if you look at Protestant architecture is you'll find that the pulpit is often lifted, and the pulpit is, you hear people talk about entering the pulpit.
07:30: Well, we don't enter this because this is more of a lectern.
07:37: This isn't really what the classic idea of a pulpit.
07:40: A pulpit would be this round structure with a ladder or a staircase that the pastor would walk up into, and he would be in the pulpit.
07:50: You've heard that phrase, in the pulpit, and he would be holding or standing behind God's Word, and the concept is that he would disappear behind God's Word, and that's part of the idea of the vestments.
08:05: If you ever notice that in Protestantism, particularly in Calvinistic Protestantism, you'll find that most of the vestments are very, very non-ornate, meaning it's just a simple black robe.
08:19: I don't wear mine much, but I do own one.
08:22: It's in that room back there.
08:25: Probably wear it Saturday, and I do normally wear it at weddings, but it's a, because the idea of the vestment is not to stand out, but is the opposite.
08:35: The idea of the vestment is to be hidden, so that the man not be the focus, but the Word be the focus, that the pulpit lifts up not the man, but the Word, and the man is in the shadows.
08:50: The man is behind the Word.
08:52: The man matters not.
08:53: The Word is the centerpiece.
08:56: The Word is the focus, and so when Paul tells us, let the Word of Christ dwell in you, it's also dwell among you, and the idea is that when we come, when we gather, we are to be taught, admonished, and we are to sing, and those are the three participles I talked about last week.
09:21: We are to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching, that's the first participle, admonishing, which is the second participle, and singing is the third participle, all of those modifying or explaining the main verb, which is the word dwell.
09:40: The Word of God dwells in us as we teach.
09:45: As the Word of God is taught, it's dwelling among us.
09:49: It's making its home in us.
09:52: As we are admonished, and remember the word admonished means to be counseled or corrected.
09:58: It's from the word new thoughts, where we get the word newthetic, counseling.
10:01: It's the idea of being corrected, and we are to be admonished.
10:08: We are to be corrected by the Word of God.
10:10: If we're unwilling to be corrected, then we are not submitted to the Word of God.
10:15: So we are to be taught by the Word.
10:17: We are to be corrected by the Word or admonished by the Word, and then lastly, singing, but how we are to sing.
10:27: We are to sing, and what do we sing? And that's the title of today's message.
10:35: Last week, we asked the question, why do we sing? And we said there's several reasons why we sing.
10:43: We sing because God deserves to be sung too.
10:46: He deserves our praise.
10:48: We sing because we have something to sing about, but we also sing because it's one of the ways that the Word of God dwells within us.
10:56: It's one of the ways that we memorize and learn God's Word is through song.
11:02: There's all kinds of reasons why we sing.
11:05: There's all kinds of examples of singing, both Old Testament and New Testament.
11:09: The Bible is replete and filled with the songs of God's people.
11:15: Why do we sing? Because of so many reasons, but what do we sing? Well, this passage does address that, and so today, I want to continue on our study now that I've brought everyone up to speed, what we talked about last week.
11:36: I want to now consider what we sing looking at this passage, and I brought my whiteboard up only because there may be a few things that I want to put on there, and I know it's sometimes harder for those over here to see it, so I'll bring it up closer if I can to make it a little easier for everyone, but you'll notice there is a threefold designation in this verse regarding what we are to sing.
12:07: The first designation that we see is the designation of psalms.
12:14: We are to sing, according to this passage, singing psalms, and the next word that we see is the word hymns, so we have songs and hymns, and then the last one is spiritual songs, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
12:42: Now, we're going to talk a little bit about the definitions of these words, but as we do, I also want to address an issue that I think is important to consider as we consider all of these ideas, and that is that, and I said this last week, but I want to repeat it, there is not an issue in the church that I can think of that has caused more intra-church strife and division than the subject of what we sing, and nobody amended it, so you may not agree, but I'm going to say I'm pretty correct, and the reason, and I know this is only anecdotal, but in my experience over the last 20 years, I have seen churches divide, and not just churches divide, I've seen people who will go and find churches only based on a musical preference, whether it is a cultural preference, or whether it is a preference that they feel very convicted about biblically, because sometimes it's just, hey, I like the music, other times it's, hey, I think this is the right music, and there's a different argument there, and so all of this comes down to the question of what do we sing, and as is often the case, and I'm going to borrow again from Brother Andy as I have, as he uses this phrase often, and so I borrow it, and when you borrow it enough, it becomes yours, and we talk about the two ditches, you know, we often say that in just about every area, there are ditches on either side, and we talk about Calvinism, right, and we say there's hyper-Calvinism, that's the bad, that we don't want to be that, right, that's a ditch that's easy to fall into, right, and then you've got Pelagianism and Arminianism on the other side, don't necessarily want to be there either, we want to be right, we want to be right with God's word, and there's other subjects too, I mean, we could say that there are ditches in regard to how we understand the simplest of things, Paul talks about ditches in the scripture, he talks about what we eat, and he says some people believe you can only eat meat, or I'm sorry, only eat vegetables, and some people eat anything, and he says, well, he says both of you need to be convinced in your own mind, but what had happened in the church to bring about that entire conversation is ditches had formed, those who would say unless you are eating only vegetables, then you're not righteous, right, or unless you're doing this, you're not righteous, and so these ditches create these demands, which are not biblical demands, they're preferences that become doctrine, and what did Jesus say about preferences that become doctrine, he talked to the Pharisees, and he says, you have established as doctrine the traditions of men, and he didn't say it in a kind way, he didn't say it in a good way, he didn't say, hey, good job making up your own rules, no he said, your rules which you've created, your rules which you've established are not founded upon the scriptures, but they're founded upon your own preferences, and you've made your preference the word of God, beloved, that's dangerous, and I would say that not every church is divided over preference, there are churches where the division is necessary because it's divided over truth, you don't get to prefer whether or not to believe in the divinity of Christ, you believe in that truth or you don't, and if you don't, you're wrong and you need to repent, because that's not an issue of preference, you don't get to prefer whether or not God's word is true, because God's word is true whether you believe it or not, and it's not a mere preference, so there are certain things, and we talk about the bull's eye where the essentials lie, and then outside of that which we call secondary things that we can disagree on and still be brothers and sisters in Christ, things like our view of baptism can be different, you know we have our maybe differences on our view of eschatology and how Jesus is going to return and when he's going to return and all those things is different, and we can have differences there and still be brothers and sisters in Christ, and then there's something on the third circle which we call adiaphora, adiaphora are the disputed things, things that really, really nobody has certainty about and it's okay, there are certain things that we don't have to be certain about, if you want certainty in everything you're going to find yourself in a cult, because that's what cults provide, cults provide you an answer for everything, and they'll always be willing to tell you what they're supposed to do, because their preference becomes the rule, when preference becomes the demand, you're no longer in a church, you're in a cult, this is what it is, so be careful, but we look at this, we talk about the two ditches, what could the ditches be in regard to music, well on one side we would say that there is a ditch that says that only, only certain things apply, and we're going to talk about what some of those only things are in just a moment, they'd be only this and it's these things, maybe it'd help if I gave you more, because that maybe sounds confusing, there are those who'd say we only should sing old hymns, and I'm going to put the word old there, because they're modern hymns, but they would say we should only sing old hymns, and then you have to begin to define questions like what makes something old, everyone in here is a different age, I feel old, but there are those of you who think I'm a baby, because you're much older than me, so how do we define old hymns, does it have to come before you, and does your age matter, does it have to be written in the 1800's or before, and does that make it old, that's a question, old hymns, there's also something called psalms only, psalms only, and I'm going to address that in a moment, because I think that this position, which tends to only be in pretty conservative reform circles, so this is something that's found in reform circles, I don't agree with it at all, I'm going to show you why in a moment, but this is a popular view that is growing, and it's called exclusive psalmity, exclusive psalmity says we should only sing the canonical psalms, the 150 psalms that are in the Psalter, so this would be that group, and then you have the other ditch, and this is the ditch of everything goes, this ditch over here, it don't matter who wrote it, it don't matter what it says, it don't matter where it's sung, you can come in and sing highway to hell, and if you think I'm joking, there's churches that the call to worship is Ozzy Osbourne, now you might say that's a pretty wide variety of ditches, but it does exist, that's the everything goes ditch, and that's a dangerous ditch, wouldn't you say, I mean honestly if we don't have any standard for what we sing, then what's the difference between singing oh how great thou art, or you know crazy train, that's the logic that exists in some churches, we can worship God with Britney Spears the same way we worship God with amazing grace, so the logic is there's no standard, everything goes, beloved, there's two ditches, and I would say that both of them are not faithful to the text, because the text actually does give us some idea of what the standards are, and so we can begin with the text, right, and we can ask ourselves okay what does the text say, well the text says that we are to be singing psalms, so right away what's one type of song that we should sing, psalms, right, now I point that out only because many churches don't sing psalms anymore, how many songs did we sing this morning that were psalms brother, didn't we sing a couple, I thought we had two, I guess I made a mistake, no, no I'm sorry, I have this list here and thank you for helping me, these are all the songs we sang this morning, we sang immortal, invisible, God only wise, which is based on 1st Timothy 1.17, we sang behold our God, which is based on Isaiah 40.12-14, we sang oh worship the king, and that's the one I was thinking, because it is based upon Psalm 104, it's not the psalm, but it's based upon Psalm 104, and then we sang Psalm 16, and then of course later we're going to sing the glory of Patrick, so those are psalms, those are taken from or are in the canonical song book of Israel, that is what we call the Psalter or the psalm book, and so we sing those psalms, now a psalm comes from the word psalos, which means a song set to music, the word psalos refers to playing an instrument, it is important because there are some who would say our songs should not have instruments, how many of you have ever heard that argument, that we shouldn't have instruments in the church, right, if you have ever been a part of the church of Christ, the church of Christ is a movement that began in the 1800's, it began with Barton Stone, Alexander and Thomas Campbell, and Sir Walter Scott, I always think Willard Scott, but it's not him, it's Walter Scott, and those men began what was known as the restoration movement, and the restoration movement gave birth to the churches of Christ, the disciples of Christ, which is the liberal denomination that's associated with that, and several other small denominations all grew out of that, and they all believed that you shouldn't play instruments, now it changed over time, there are some who do and some who don't now, but they had a non-instrumental, in fact you'll see some churches of Christ, if you drive by their churches, some of their signs will say church of Christ, and in parenthesis non-instrumental, now non-instrumental that means we're not going to sing using instruments, now why in the world would a church say that we shouldn't use instruments, and by the way they're not the only ones, you know who else didn't believe in instruments, pretty highly respected name, one that might surprise you, a man by the name of Charles Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon repudiated the use of instruments, and he said I would as soon pray with a piece of machinery as I would sing with a piece of machinery, that was his quote, I would just as soon pray with a machine as I would sing with a machine, so his idea was no instruments, but I think the prince of preachers was wrong, I would tell him but he's not here, I do think he was wrong, and I do think that it's based upon a wrong understanding of the regulative principle, now if you're not familiar with the regulative principle, the regulative principle simply says that God's word should regulate our worship, the RPW, regulative principle of worship, means that when we worship we should worship God's way and not our way, and all God's people said amen, we should all agree that when we worship we should worship God's way and not our way, so when we worship we do it the way God wants us to, we pray because God commands us to pray, we sing because God commands us to sing, we study the word because God commands us to study the word, we participate in communion because God's word commands that we participate in the supper, that's called the regulative principle of worship, that God regulates his worship, and there's really nothing wrong with that as far as it goes, but what happens is you get those who take the RPW, who take that regulative principle and begin to apply to it things that become preferences, and they'll say well it's not in the word of God, so we shouldn't do it, for instance in the New Testament you don't find commands to use instruments, in the New Testament you don't see an example of the use of instruments, so those who hold to a very rigid form of the regulative principle would say that the Old Testament doesn't count because we're New Testament Christians, now in a sense, hold on to your hat, in a sense I do agree in one sense that we are not under the old covenant, we're under the new covenant, so in that sense I agree that we're not old covenant saints, we're new covenant saints and therefore we do have new covenant standards that distinguish us from the old covenant, for instance the food that we eat and things like that, there are things that are different, but does that mean that the old covenant rules for worship which included instruments no longer have any application to today, I would say absolutely not and I base this upon our passage for today, because when the apostle Paul points to what we should sing, he points to the songs that had musical accompaniment, he says singing the Psalms and guess what you find when you read through the Psalms, lutes and lyres and tambourines and trumpets, stringed instruments and you know what's so funny about that, you go to some churches and they'll say, well we'll allow a violin but not a guitar, why is what is in my left hand more holy than what is in my right, preference, there's nothing, sorry, there's nothing more intrinsically valuable about this than there is this, there's nothing necessarily more intrinsically beautiful about this than there is this, they both are essentially the same instrument played differently, but we have those who would say this be holy and this be demonic, you see how we turn preference into doctrine, there's nothing godly about that, there's nothing godly about that, by the way Caleb I do thank you for joining the worship team and adding your talent and I wouldn't have been able to do that illustration three weeks ago, so praise the lord, so the question of should we have instruments, I really don't think is really a question because we have, and by the way we don't only have Colossians 3.16, we also have Ephesians 5.18 and 19 which is the parallel passage also mentions the Psalms and in that passage it says making melody in your hearts to God, it says sing with Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs making melody in your hearts to God, and the phrase making melody in the Greek language actually refers to the idea of a melody which is produced with an instrument, it actually does refer to instrumental worship, now one would say wait a minute it says with my heart not with an instrument, yeah but when you sing do you sing only on the inside or do you sing on the outside, because he says sing and make melody, sing and make melody, making melody is what we do with the device and with our voice, there's nothing wrong inherently with having an instrument, now if you're convicted about it and you think that you don't want to have an instrument in worship guess what, God allows for preferential things, but you are not allowed to take your preference and impose it upon someone else, that's a very issue that the early church dealt with, the taking of preferential things and demanding that other people share those same preferences, that's not how it works, that's not Christian liberty, so I believe that the use of instruments is not only fine within the church I think it's part of what we should do, but if a church says they shouldn't do it that's fine, I have no issue, but I do think that it is certainly allowed if not argue that it's commanded, again I can show you so many passages in the Old Testament where instruments were used to exalt the Lord, so again going back to Charles Spurgeon's argument, his argument would not have worked 700 years before Christ, it wouldn't have worked 1000 years before Christ, and if that argument that he's making doesn't work then it really doesn't work now either, so again the prince of preachers can be wrong and that's okay, so he says we are to sing with psalms, now he doesn't stop at the psalms, there are those who say we should only sing the canonical psalms, but Paul doesn't stop with the psalms, Paul says we are to sing with psalms and hymns, hymn simply means a song of praise, hymns are praise, psalms and hymns and then the word is odos where we get the word ode, song like an ode to this, you think of that, it's a song, odos, pneumocotos I think is how the Greek, the odes that are spiritual are spiritual songs, that's this last one, and it's the only one that receives that spiritual demarcation, a spiritual song, now there is thousands of pages devoted to the discussion of what distinguishes these three things, I don't think that it's really something that we can for certain make an argument about, well this absolutely only refers to this and this absolutely only refers to this and this absolutely refers to this, what I think that Paul is doing by giving us three different song titles, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is he is expressing the variety in which we worship God or with which we worship God, now some would say but all of these are used in the Septuagint to describe the psalms, this is where the exclusive psalm of the argument comes in, they'll say that when you read the Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible it always uses psalms or hymns or spiritual songs to refer to the canonical psalms, so it's still the psalms, here is my argument against that, I'm actually going to quote from T.
33:19: David Gordon who did a debate on this subject with Dennis Proutot on the subject of exclusive psalmody and what he said is this, psalms, the word psalms appears in the Old Testament Greek Bible, the Septuagint 92 times but only 41 of them are referring to the canonical psalms, the rest of them are referring to other psalms because there are other psalms, you realize throughout the Old Testament there are psalms that are not in the psalms right, there is the psalm of Deborah, there is the psalm of Moses, there is the psalm in the New Testament, you've got Mary's Magnificent, you've got the psalm of the mother of Samuel, give it to me, Hannah thank you, these are all psalms right, they are throughout the Old Testament right, so the term is used in other places not just in the canonical psalms, so we have it 92 times in the Old Testament, only 41 of those times are in the psalms, the word hymn is used 32 times in the Old Testament, only 5 times does it refer to a canonical psalm, so all the rest of it is referring to psalms outside of the canon, outside of the psalms and the word song, there is no spiritual psalm, it's just the word song, the word song is used 85 times, only 15 of those times refer to a canonical psalm, the rest of them refer to psalms that are outside of the canonical psalms, the argument that this always refers to the canonical psalms is simply not hold water, I encourage you to go listen to the debate if you are interested to hear what I heard, but Dr.
34:47: Fruto and Dr.
34:50: Gordon did a debate on the subject and I think Dr.
34:53: Gordon made his case very well, that these phrases do not limit themselves only to the canonical psalms, and if they did, if they did only refer to the canonical psalms, that would mean that we are not able in corporate worship to exalt the name of Christ specifically, because the canonical psalms refer to Christ in signs and shadows, but not specifically, see we can sing Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, greatest name I know, we can sing that because we have this side of the new covenant and we are able to see everything, not as the old covenant saints looking forward, we now can look back and we actually have in the new covenant examples of songs, Philippians chapter 2, have this mind in yourself that it is also in Christ Jesus, that though being in the form of God he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but came in the form of a man and humbled himself and went to death, even to death on a cross, you realize that is referred to by many scholars as the Carmen Christi, you know why that means the song of Christ, because it is believed that was an early Christian hymn, Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 to 20, I preached on this 6 months ago whenever I was in chapter 1 and I said I believe that section is an early Christian hymn, referring to the nature of Christ, we have hymns in revelation which are not found in the canonical psalms, but are sung by the saints in heaven, exclusive psalm is a great idea, but here is something that you need to know, it is a relatively new idea, it is not found in the ancient church, it is not even found in the middle age church, it is a post reformational idea and it is not something that we have to be bound by, it is not something we have to be bound by, so the idea that we can only sing the psalms, I don't believe is true, but we should sing the psalms because he says sing the psalms, it is there, so we shouldn't exclude the psalms and that is the other side, when everything goes then a lot of bad comes and a lot of good goes, and what happens often times is they quit singing the psalms, we should sing the psalms, we should be intimate lay familiar with God's psalms, they are beautiful, they are wonderful, they speak to the heart, they address issues, they are part and should be part of Christian worship, but we are not limited to them, we are not limited to them, neither are we limited to old hymns, I said earlier I was going to mention that, but it is hard to define, because what is defined as old and what even really defines a hymn, someone would say well a hymn has four stanzas or five or whatever, it is structured a certain way, not necessarily, you can take your hymn book and I can go to four or five different hymns that we sing that are old hymns and all of them have different structures, some of them have a chorus, some of them don't have a chorus, some of them have three verses, some of them have six verses, some of them are based, and this is, don't get offended, just don't, some of them are based upon the meter of songs that were sung in taverns, because that is the way people sang and that is how they knew the songs, so they changed the words into Christian words so that the people would sing the songs, but the pattern was the tavern music, and if that offends us, it shouldn't, because I am going to say something very offensive and don't, again, don't leave without talking to me at least, but here, there is no such thing as Christian music, only Christian lyrics, because if you leave here and you go over to Uganda, you are going to hear much different music, but if they are singing about the same Jesus, you are going to hear the same truths with their music, and if you go from here and you go to a place where they do something like Christian hip-hop or the spoken word, where there are men who stand up and lyricize God's word in a way that is unique to that culture, but it's God's word, then it's not wrong if it's not what you like, and if it's not wrong if it's not your culture, what we have done is we have baptized a specific culture and said, this is right, southern gospel music is when Jesus knew what he was doing, and everything else doesn't count, you know, you want to talk about old hymns, no one in here is asking for Gregorian chant, and that's old, you see, we have to be reasonable, what is an old hymn, it doesn't matter how old it is, it matters what it says, it really doesn't matter, what's one of the best new hymns, what's one that's been written in the last 50 years, there's one in my mind, in Christ alone, who said it, in Christ alone, in Christ alone my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song, that song carries much more theological weight than in the garden, don't you get mad at me, in the garden, I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear as it calls me near, you know that song, and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I'm his own, and the voice we share, the joy we share as we tarry there no others ever know, that's great, it's as theologically deep as a mud puddle, but it's great, it does not have theological depth as much as you love it, really doesn't have much depth, well it's about Jesus being close to me, it's about him walking with me, I didn't say it was wrong, one of my favorite songs is not very theologically deep, we don't sing it much, but we have, it's about Christ being near, it says when I cannot fear, no wait, I'm going to try to sing it, but it's called hidden in you, and again it's not super theological deep, but when my grandmother was dying, man I sang that song with all my heart, because it was about being hidden in him, so there is, not everything has to extol the virtues of the economic and ontological trinity to be valuable, but we should have songs that do it all, right, we should have songs that deal with the depth of what we sang today, immortal, invisible, God only wise, enlightened, accessible, hid from our eyes, all blessed, all glorious, the ancient of days, almighty victorious, his great name we praise, we should sing that and we should sing that with power, but we can also sing of the songs that are close to our heart as well, songs that may not be as cerebral, but are still valuable, so where does the line draw, and this is an important, and I'm out of time before I know it, but there is a line that we ought not cross, there is a line, this concept of everything goes, it's dangerous, and not just because you end up singing Ozzy Osbourne or something really out off the wall, but there are songs that are not just theologically weak, there are songs that are theologically wrong, and we ought not fill our mind and heart with songs that teach us wrong things about Jesus, because what did we say songs are, songs have a catechistic quality, meaning we learn the song, and it actually imbibes in us, and it becomes part of us, and if we are doing that with songs that are incorrect about Christ, then what we are doing is we are catechizing ourselves in error, and that's wrong, so right away the very first question of what should we sing, it needs to be correct, doesn't always have the same level of depth, all songs are different, but it cannot pass the line of heresy, it cannot pass the line of a song that's wrong, don't ask for examples, there is a bunch of them out there, and you know what's funny, they are prevalent among the old hymns as well as the new, I've had people ask me, why don't we ever sing that song anymore, because we shouldn't have been singing it in the first place, because there are songs that are just wrong, so we ought to have right theology in our music, but also we do have to consider, and this may sound like a practical insertion, but I want you to think about what I am about to say, worship music is intended to be corporate, and therefore the songs we sing should be singable, the songs we sing should be singable, because if the songs we sing require that we all be as talented as Matt, that is not going to work, and it will cause us not to sing, so there is something about the corporate nature of singing that has to be a part of what we, now that doesn't matter when you are driving home and you want to listen to something that's all solos and high notes or whatever, cool, enjoy it, love it, and that's how you worship, yelling in your car and people driving by looking at you, that's fine, but when we gather, our songs should be accurate, and they should be corporate, does that mean we never ever do a solo, no, there are times, albeit rare, that we even in this church have offered up an opportunity for somebody to express a gift that they have, but in some churches, solo singing is like an every Sunday thing, they call it who's going to do the special, I don't know if you grew up in church, you know what I'm talking about, who's going to do the special this week, sister, brother, you doing the special this week, and what happens in those cases is it becomes a performance venue, it becomes all about who's going to do the special, who's going to be in the performance, who's going to have the microphone and have everyone looking at them, again, what did I say at the beginning of the sermon, when I'm preaching, I want to disappear and Christ be on display, and that should be the heart behind when we sing and even when we're leading our singing, right, it's not about the solo, it's not about the individual, it's about exalting Christ, so songs should be correct and songs should be corporate, now there is a huge debate going on right now, and it's actually not just going on right now, it's been going on for the past probably 5 to 7 years, and it is the debate about the authorship of songs, oh yeah, now your ears are perked up because you want to know what I'm going to say, because there has been a huge argument that we should never sing a song that's written by a questionable artist or group, and I sympathize with that concern, but I think what we have done is we've created a new form of piety, that if anybody ever sings a song that we don't deem the group worthy, then they're heretics, and that's dangerous, that's an unfair piety that I don't think we should try to hold to, but on the other hand, I do think that groups like Hillsong and Elevation and Bethel, those groups are not preaching the gospel, so if we are listening to their music, we ought to be very discerning, because they're preaching a false gospel, Bethel Redding, led by Bill Johnson, and I'll say his name, I don't care, and I've gotten ugly emails because I've said this publicly on my podcast, he is a false teacher, and he's leading people in a false gospel, and he is writing, and his group is writing songs, and they will tell you that the songs that they're writing are intended to flourish their ministry, so I think that that's something to consider, but, but, that doesn't mean that everything they've ever written is kryptonite, there are some decent songs out there, and every once in a while we may sing one, but again, what's the standard? It be theologically accurate, and corporately singable, because I'll tell you a story, we all love the song, when peace like a river, attendeth my way, it is well, it is well with my soul, I love that song, I sing it all day long, but the man who wrote it fell into heresy to make the song wrong, not necessarily, sad story actually, look it up, so my point is we start with what it says, and then we say is it singable, that's the first and most important thing, but our steady diet should not be coming from those places, in fact if you ask where our music comes from, the vast majority of the music we've sang in the last year has actually been, brother Matt has introduced us to several songs that were written by people he knows personally, my soul among lions, that group that puts out some of the music that we sing, he's actually played with them, right, I'm correct about this? So we know where it comes from, we know who wrote it, we know they're godly men, and have you noticed the depth in some of the songs that we've sang that maybe you've never seen anywhere else, what should we sing? Songs that are theologically accurate, songs that exalt Christ, songs that are corporately singable and songs that we know we can lift up to God and say here is an offering to you that is a right, beloved we ought to sing, and we ought to sing well, and we ought to sing out, and I didn't really get to how we sing, so I'm going to have to pray whether or not I'm just going to move on or come back next week, but I'll know by Sunday, but I think you all hear what I'm saying, we ought to sing, and we ought to sing with all our hearts, and if you're not willing to sing, as I said last week, repent and sing.
52:35: Let's pray.
52:37: Father, I thank you for your word, I thank you for your truth, and I pray oh God that you would keep us from the ditches, and Lord keep us on the path of righteousness, and when it comes to our songs, Lord, that our songs would be a pleasant aroma like an incense that comes up and pleases your nostrils, Lord, that our words of song would be songs of praise to your ears, and that they would exalt you, and Lord that they would instruct us, and we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.