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The Singing
Eph. 5:15-21, Col. 3:12-17
-Why do we sing when we gather together? Most of us don’t have training, most of us don’t want others to hear us when we do sing (shower head), if we’re brutally honest most of us don’t really gel with the songs we sing anyway.
- What Is Worship?
-Unfortunate when we started making “worship music” as a genre
-God is interested in things being done well, honorable
-Ascribing worth and honor to God. Why? Because he alone is worthy! (Psalm 96)
-Tell of his salvation, declare his glory, he is to be feared
-All of our lives are worship (1 Cor. 10:31, Rom. 12:1)
-Francis Chan eating a Snickers bar to the glory of God
-Martin Luther “The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but all works are measured before God by faith alone.”
-Westminster Shorter Catechism, written in 1647: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.
-Worship -> Christian worship -> corporate worship
-What are some idols you see being worshipped today?
-Technology addiction – Time magazine, teenagers are becoming addicted to their cell phones, leading to depression.
-Social networking – FOMO, fear of missing out.
-Money? 401K your god? Maybe the security of being financial stable?
-In fact, none of these things are completely bad! A smart phone allows Cara’s parents to see their grandkids on a regular basis. Social networking lets me keep up with friends across the globe. The problem is when they become gods.
-What about family? Families are a gift from the Lord, but elevating them to the place of God is wrong.
-Maybe image is your God? Proverbs reminds us that beauty is fleeting
-Health? 1 Tim. 4:8 “while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
-Job? What if you’re fired?
-What about our acts of worship? Amos 5:21-24 ““I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
-“the worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible.” (David Peterson, 20)
–Hebrews 12:28-29
-Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10)
-Therefore, worship is always a response to God. (see below)
-every good and perfect gift is from above (James 1:17)
-What do you have that you did not receive (1 Cor. 4:7)
-Worshipping is acknowledging these realities.
-One of the primary ways we can worship is through singing.
- Singing is the Pattern of God’s People
-Creation accounts in LOTR and Narnia
-Adam (Gen. 2:23) “Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
-Crossing the Red Sea (Ex. 15) “Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”
-Deborah and Barak (Judges 5) (prophetess and leader in Israel, after Sisera is killed)
-Singing about Saul and David (1 Sam. 18) “And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,
“Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.”
-Psalms as songs (A song of…) 18, 30, 45, 46
-Restoration of the temple under Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29) “The whole assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. 29 When the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped.”
-Jesus and the 12 (Matt. 26:30) “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
-new heavens and earth (Rev. 4:8) “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
Rev. 5:9-10
9 And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
-early church
-Pliny, governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor Christians “met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god.”
– Tertullian, writing from North Africa during the end of the 1st Century, “Each is invited to sing to God in the presence of others from what he knows of the holy scripture or from his own heart.”
-Jonathan Edwards: “And the duty of singing praises to God, seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned, why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections.”
-what moves your affections?
- We Sing to Remember
-We are forgetful people.
-Comic strip at Grace
-Building ebenezers in the OT
-How many times does it take you to remember something?
–2017 Study – average American spend 2.5 days each year looking for lost items.
-Repetition is necessary to remember:
–Psalm 136
-G.K. Chesterton: “it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”
-What does this look like in the NT? A couple parallel passages in Ephesians and Colossians
- Address One Another (Eph. 5)
“how you walk”
-walk this way
-Theme in this letter (4:1, 17; 5:2, 8) Paul’s way of talking about how they live
“best use of the time”
-Worship God everywhere we go
-Shema in Deut. 6
-Foolish contrasted with “the will of the Lord”
–1 Thess. 4:3 “For this is the will of God: your sanctification (holiness)”
-Do not be drunk
-be filled by the Spirit, not the spirits (similar to what was happening in Corinth)
-How are we filled by the Spirit? Vs 19
-“addressing one another”
-You need to sing! You can’t address each other unless you’re singing
-Volume – too loud no one sings, too quiet no one sings
-Psalms (Jewish) hymns (Greek) spiritual song (everything else)
-Hymn definition: Augustine defined it: sung, praise, to God.
-Google: a religious song or poem of praise to God or a god.
-Merriman Webster: a song of praise to God
-I’ve yet to find a definition of hymn that means: in the hymnal or old.
-Grant Osborne “Hymns in the early church were used to teach theology to believers. The lyrics were chosen not for their artistic value but for their truth and depth of content.” (182)
-“with your heart” not just IN your heart, WITH
-“giving thanks always and for everything”
-Even the songs you don’t like. Every week we sing songs I don’t like!
-“If the gathering is about building up and encouraging the church, then a song I don’t like presents an opportunity to love and encourage others whose tastes differ from mine.” (Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, 88)
-“submitting to one another.”
-Dying to ourselves, loving each other enough to look beyond our personal preferences
- The Word of Christ (Col. 3)
-Clothing metaphor (earlier was putting off, this is putting on)
-Laundry list of characteristics
-One another’s in the NT
-Forgiving, we saw this idea last week in the Lord’s Prayer
-Love brings a beautiful harmony to everything we do
-melody vs harmony
-We need to use our gifts to create this harmony, that’s why I try to help Tami out with music regularly
-Peace of Christ leads to one body
-Thankfulness (again!)
-Word of Christ dwell
-you will probably forget everything I say today as you walk out the doors! You might walk out humming a song (guy complaining about it)
“Read the Word, preach the Word, pray the Word, sing the Word, see the Word (in the ordinances)” (Mark Dever, The Deliberate Church, 81)
-Singing is a form of teaching and admonishing each other
-Sing OUT LOUD!
-Whatever you do
-life of worship
-What does this look like?
-Liturgy: the work of the people
“The goal of our gatherings should be to cultivate practices that form our church to live in the good news of the gospel.” (Cosper, 121)
-Caught & Taught: reorientation
The Common Flow (Bryan Chapell Christ Centered Worship, 100)
Adoration – recognition of God’s character
Confession – acknowledgment of our character
Assurance – affirmation of grace
Thanksgiving – expression of devotion
Petition and Intercession – desire for aid in living for God
Instruction from God’s Word – acquiring knowledge for pleasing God
Charge and Benediction – living unto God with his blessing
The Consistent message: The Gospel re-presented
-Begin, in the middle, and end with “the Word of Christ.”
“Show me a church’s songs and I’ll show you their theology.” Gordon Fee
-Service centers around the preaching of God’s Word, so song choice and other elements center on that theme (all else fails, re-present the gospel!)
-Variety of songs, styles, and ages (catalogue of no more than 100 with 8-12 new ones a year)
-Language matters (as we continue to worship through…)
-The entire service is important, not just the sermon or the songs, but BOTH
-Healthy tensions/well balanced diet: (Zac Hicks The Worship Pastor, 73)
- Transcendence and immanence of God (Isaiah 6:5 “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””) (Acts 17:28 ““‘In him we live and move and have our being’;)
- Cognitive and emotional (Head and Heart) (doxology & theology) (Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth”, Romans 12:1-2 “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”) (Psalm 32:11 “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”)
- Internal and external expressions (Matthew 15:8-9 ““‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”, 1 Corinthians 13) (Psalm 100:2 “Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!”, 101:1, 95:6 “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!”, 134:2 “Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!”)
- Vertical and horizontal (Psalm 96:2 “sing to the Lord, bless his name”, 98:5-6) (Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”)
- Planned and spontaneous – story of planning in pencil
- Historic and contextualized (rooted and relevant)
- For the church and for the unbeliever “Sit long – talk much – laugh often.” (Col. 3:16) (1 Cor. 14:24-25 “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.)
- Gathered and Scattered (1 Corinthians 14:26 “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up, 11:17-18) (1 Corinthians 10:31-33 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.”)
-So when we gather, we need to remember to teach and admonish one another, and one of the ways we can do that is by singing.
Pastor Mike's Musings 