Singing

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

When I first became a Christian and started going to a Presbyterian church, I quickly fell in love with the hymns. Some of them were a little gloomy and some of them dragged on a bit… but the lyrics were so rich and meaningful. They helped me understand my faith. They helped me love Jesus more.

That’s because humans are musical creatures; across the world, music and singing show up in almost every culture. We are not all equally good singers! But everyone in this room has an appreciation for music of some kind.

We are that way not just by habit but by design, because we are made in the image of our Creator. The first instruments show up in Genesis 4, only seven generations after Adam:

His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. (Genesis 4:21)

Job 38 pictures ‘the morning stars’ singing together at creation, and some have even described Genesis 1 as having a song-like, rhythmic structure in Hebrew. Spend some time going down the YouTube rabbit hole of sound waves and physics and you’ll discover that the universe itself is musical.

That’s because God Himself is a singer:

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

This is one of my favorite depictions of God in the Bible, because here He is pictured doing the very thing he commands us to do when we worship him. And that makes sense if we were created in His image!

You may be surprised to learn that singing is mentioned well over 400 times in the Bible. What did the Israelites do right after they crossed the Red Sea?

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. (Exodus 15:1)

Miriam then led the women in a song of praise.
Israel sang often on their wilderness journey. Deborah and Barak sang a victory song in Judges 5. Hannah sings when God answers her prayer for a child. David wrote songs. Jehoshaphat formed a choir. The people sang when the temple was restored. It’s everywhere.

When we sing as a church, we’re not filling time in the service; we’re joining a long, biblical pattern of God’s people responding to his salvation in song!

There are also more than 50 direct commands in the Bible to sing, and it carries over into the New Testament where the church is commanded to sing as part of corporate worship.

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. (Colossians 3:16)

Address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. (Ephesians 5:19)

We also see examples of the early church in Acts lifting their voices in one accord. Paul and Silas sang in prison.

Music is more than a human experience. It’s a God-ordained practice from cover-to-cover in the Bible! And it’s not going to stop when Jesus returns. The book of Revelation is full of visions depicting heaven as a place where people sing!

Music and singing have always been a part of God’s church in every culture. And it always will be. We were designed to be singers, even if we aren’t very good at it. And that’s because we have something very important to sing about.

Christians sing because God is worthy. Our singing helps us praise, pray, remember, and proclaim the gospel together. It is a response of thankful hearts to God’s grace, and it builds up the church.

It’s really not an optional part of the Christian experience. We are repeatedly commanded to do it. It doesn’t matter if we feel like it, or if we’re bad at it. We sing together because we’re not singing for ourselves or for the people around us. We are singing for God!

That’s why we do it. Now, let’s talk about how we do it. I’m going to give you several principles that we use here at Christ Fellowship to guide our song choices and the way we lead the singing.

The first and most important principle is that our singing is God-centered. God is the subject and the object of our worship. He is our audience. For that reason, we pick songs that lead our hearts to focus on who God is and what God has done, not what we are promising to do! That’s the pattern we see in the Bible and it’s very important to us.

Second, we care about the theological accuracy of the songs we choose. We want to sing songs that clearly communicate God’s truth. And so, we check the lyrics to make sure they do. If it’s not true, we don’t sing it.

Third, we try to use songs that are accessible. What I mean by that is we want children, new Christians, and unbelievers to be able to understand what we are singing. Sometimes there are words that need a little explanation. But most of the time, our lyrics are easy to understand. And we provide them in Spanish as well for this reason.

Fourth, our music team is leading us in singing, they are not performing. This is not a gig, a concert, or a performance. The people on stage are using their gifts for the Lord, not as a showcase, but for a specific purpose. They’re up here to lead the congregation in singing.

Finally, we encourage the congregation to worship with some freedom of expression. It’s ok to raise your hands. It’s ok to clap your hands. It’s even ok to shout. Why? Because we see that in the Bible too.

Lift up your hands to the holy place
and bless the LORD! (Psalm 134:2)

Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy! (Psalm 47:1)

This makes some people nervous, but it is a perfectly acceptable posture of worship. Paul even tells the men in 1 Timothy to lift holy hands when they pray.

The only thing I would warn against is turning into a competition. Our worship is for God, not the brother or sister down the aisle who’s getting into it more than you. We try to worship in an orderly fashion, because the congregation should not be trying to draw attention to itself.

But that’s not a problem here. We have a lot more of the frozen chosen. Very low levels of expression, but if I saw some of you at a college football game it might be a different story!

That’s meant to be a loving, gentle poke. It’s OK to express yourself a little in worship and that’s something we could all grow in a little bit.

Those are some guiding principles. God-centered. Theologically sound. Accessible. Not a performance. And it’s ok to raise your hands, clap, and shout.

But what if you don’t like the kind of music we do here? I realize that a lot of people pick a church based, at least in part, on the style of music.

In fact, if we took a poll, there’s probably a significant number of you who would prefer something very different. Some of you would prefer more of a Gospel feel… more tempo and more energy. Some of you would prefer more emotion. Some of you might prefer less emotion, or a more traditional feel.

And I recognize that Christians listen to all kinds of music. There are many different rich historical and indigenous music traditions in the church.

Our church family is also ethnically and generationally diverse. It would be impossible for us to meet everyone’s preferences.

I would personally be OK with a lot of different styles of music in worship. On my own time, I listen to a lot of different kinds of worship music. But again, at the end of the day, we’re not here for our preferences, because it’s not about us.

Singing is commanded. It’s important. But its value in Scripture is explicitly tied to our worship of God. He is the subject and the object of our worship.

And even if this isn’t your favorite flavor, I want to encourage you to sing. Not for yourself, but for God. And for the sake of the congregation, especially the little ones in the room who need to see us worship.

Singing together is actually a powerful proclamation of the Gospel. It allows us to actively demonstrate our faith together. When we open our mouths to sing lyrics about our God and what He has done for us in Christ, we are professing our faith in a clear, visible way.

Singing unites the church. It encourages other people in their faith. It encourages my heart to see you singing. It teaches our children. It causes unbelievers to start asking questions. They can look around and see all these people singing their faith.

God can use it in more ways than we realize. He didn’t command us to do it only when we feel like it, or if it’s fun for us.

God is a singing God who made a singing people, and he has woven song into the whole story of redemption—from the shores of the Red Sea to the prisons of Philippi to the throne room of Revelation. He does not merely tolerate our music; he commands it, fills it with his Word, and uses it to steady our hearts and build his church.

The question is not, “Am I a good singer?” but, “Will I join the song?” Will I bring my ordinary, imperfect voice and add it to the testimony of God’s people—declaring who he is and what he has done in Christ?

In a few minutes, we’re going to do exactly that. When we stand to sing, don’t just recite words on a screen. Sing as a creature made in the image of a singing God. Sing as someone rescued from darkness. Sing as a citizen of heaven, rehearsing for the day when faith becomes sight and the song never ends.

Open your mouth. Take your place in the chorus. For He is worthy!