Why We Sing

Kris Drent | Student Ministries | Grace Bible Church

Introduction

Some of you have heard me talk about this topic before. Maybe you were in here last time I did this a few years ago. Maybe you weren’t. Maybe you just struck up a conversation with me over coffee somewhere or in the hallway out here, and I kind of bled on you for a bit about singing. But I do want to talk about it, because here’s the thing: let’s just be honest. Every week, a few hundred people gather in this building, and when we meet together, we sing.

If you step outside our bubble of our church, that’s a weird thing. It’s not normal for people to make singing an integral part of their meeting time. Unless you’re a music group—if you’re a band or a choir or something, sure. But when you go to school and gather, you don’t all simultaneously start singing the same song throughout every class. It’s just not normal. You don’t go to the doctor and gather in that room to start singing. I mean, this is different, right?

And every single week, have you noticed the importance that we put on singing together when we gather here at Grace Bible Church? Why is that? Christians all over the world gather to do the exact same thing. They sit under the teaching of God’s Word, and they sing. They also take communion, and they do other things too. The reason they do these things is because these are instructions, and they’re useful. If you look at the Old Testament, this singing, when the people of God gather, has been happening for thousands of years. So this is not a new thing.

But I am convinced that too few Christians have a good biblical understanding as to why we do this. And I’m also convinced that when believers in churches grow to understand why we sing when we get together, and why we make it a priority when we gather, they are always encouraged to grow in this understanding. They’re built up in their faith. They’re built up and stirred in their fellowship with God, in their fellowship with each other, and in the ministries that they’re in. So this evening, we are going to try to do just that. We’re going to look into God’s Word and be encouraged about why we sing as a church when we gather.

Scripture is full of singing. If you’re in a Bible reading plan, I just want to encourage you. I’ve said this before—usually when I’m just up here singing, I try to get my mini-sermon in. There were jokes at camp about my mini-sermons before messages. But this is a full sermon, so you get the whole thing, okay? If you are in a reading plan, I encourage you, as you read through God’s Word, if you ever see a place in Scripture that says someone sang, or a command to sing, or a reason to sing, or a situation where they sang, put a little music note by it. I don’t know if you know how to make those, but something that looks like a music note. You’ll be surprised how often Scripture talks about it.

It commands us to sing, gives us reasons to sing, gives us narrative stories of choirs, of people writing songs to sing. We’ve got many written songs to sing actually recorded in Scripture for us—many written songs that aren’t necessarily Psalms, but that we know the people of Israel sang. It talks about skilled musicians that draw people into singing. So with all this Scripture, it’s good for us to ask and learn: why do we sing? Why is it so important? Scripture provides a lot of plentiful reasons why.

So if you ask me to summarize it, let me summarize it up front, and then we’re going to walk through it, okay? Two really good reasons. One, God commands us to. He tells us to. But I think what’s more interesting is the why. More importantly for tonight, why does He tell us to? Why is this such a good thing? I would summarize it this way: God designed corporate singing—meaning the singing when we gather—as a powerful ministry that works in four purposeful directions. And every one of us is called to participate in it.

So tonight, we’re going to open God’s Word, and we’re going to see that. God designed corporate singing as a powerful ministry that works in four purposeful directions. Let me just put it this way. I’ll reword that a little bit: when the church sings—corporate just means the saints gather and we’re together and we do it—this singing is an active ministry that works powerfully and purposefully in multiple directions at once. Did you know that? Let’s look at them together.

1. Upward: Exalt God

Open your Bibles to Psalm 96. Here we have a prime example of Scripture instructing us in the first place just to sing. But it highlights our first and most foundational direction of this ministry of singing. We haven’t gotten to the first one yet, but I will tell you there are four of them. If you look at Psalm 96, we’re going to see this first one jump off the page. So let’s read it together. You follow along while I read it out loud, and listen as I read it for the command to sing and the reasons why we sing. There’s more in there—there’s how to sing, what we sing—but listen for the command to sing and the reasons that we sing.

Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.

Tell of His glory among the nations,
His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before Him;
strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name;
bring an offering and come into His courts.
Worship the Lord in holy attire;
tremble before Him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”
Indeed, the world is firmly established; it will not be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all it contains;
let the field exult, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
before the Lord, for He is coming,
for He is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in His faithfulness.

So, I don’t know if you heard it, but in this psalm God’s people are given specific instruction to sing to the Lord. If you look at verses 1 and 2, it’s a command. So here’s the first reason why we sing: we’re commanded to. You see it right there.

There are a lot of Psalms, by the way, that command that. But notice it gives instructions. Just look at verses 2 and 3 and look at what we are to sing about. What is it that we’re singing? In our singing, we are to bless His name. We’re to proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. We’re to tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. Look at verses 7 and 8. We’re supposed to ascribe glory and strength to His name. Look, His name has strength and glory. We’re just supposed to give witness to that and ascribe that to be true. Yes, we agree.

In other words, the song content matters here. Isn’t that interesting? He’s given us the content to sing. Scripture instructs us and demonstrates to us what kind of songs we should sing, what themes are glorifying to God for us to sing together. By the way, this is why the content of the songs that we choose here at Grace Bible Church is always theologically rich. It’s the first thing that gets you through the door. If it’s not theologically accurate, we don’t need to listen to it. If it’s not theologically rich, we don’t have time. We’ve got more important things to lock into our minds, and so we choose songs like this—songs that talk about God and what He has done in truth.

But tonight we’re asking, why do we sing? And it says it in here. Did you see it? According to this psalm, why are we to sing to God? In short, because He’s worthy. You see that? Verses 4 through 6: He is worthy. He’s infinitely worthy of praise. So when we gather, we sing of His worthiness and of His greatness.

You know, the same reason—even though this was back then—the same reason applies today. God is worthy, so participate. This first directional ministry that we’re talking about, and I’ve summarized it this way, is upward. And it is our foundation. If we don’t do this, we’re not doing it, and all the other directions of this ministry aren’t going to happen. But the first direction is upward. When we sing corporately, we direct praise to God and we exalt Him, and our attention is on Him because He is the center of our worship. That’s the direction.

But in this psalm it says that we’re to do that—we’re to exalt Him, proclaim Him—and when it gives us these reasons like because He’s worthy, because He’s the Creator of all things, and all things should praise Him, everyone’s voice should praise Him, one thing I just want to point out is that when we are singing together, there are times when we like to excuse ourselves. Sometimes we withhold: “I don’t feel like singing today.” “I guess music isn’t my thing. That’s Kris’s thing, but that’s not my thing, so I’m probably not going to sing today.” Or maybe you don’t think you sing well: “I’m not a very good singer, so I’m not going to sing.” Or “I don’t like the style of music, so I’m not going to sing.” “This isn’t my favorite song. I’m not going to sing.”

Do you see any of those qualifications here in this passage? “Hey, sing because you like the music they’re singing.” No. We sing because God is worthy. I could be singing a style of song that I wouldn’t choose, with people I don’t really know, but if it’s singing truth that glorifies God and ascribes greatness to His name, we do it because He deserves it, not because I feel like it. Isn’t that interesting? It actually includes everybody in that. It’s talking about the seas, the trees. God deserves that kind of worship. This is why, when we sing, we start with this upward direction toward God.

There are a lot of passages here. We’re just looking at Psalm 96 right now. But on your sheet, they’re there. You can look those up and see this. There are just so many commands: sing because He deserves it. There are people who say, “I don’t really believe that.” I know, but did you know He still deserves that praise? It’s a good thing, and we participate because He’s worthy.

I just did want to point out that the psalm has a lot of other instruction other than this upward exaltation. We sing upward to exalt God, and we start there, but notice it also says how. And again it tells us that we’re exalting Him. Look at verses 9 and 10. How are we supposed to worship Him? It says, in holy attire, we are supposed to be trembling before Him. This is such an instructive psalm. In other words, we’re supposed to do it with reverence, with seriousness, and with a sincerity that reflects who it is that we’re singing to and what He’s worthy of. This isn’t casual. It’s not routine. It’s not just a habit that we do on Sundays or whatever. We are addressing the God who made the heavens, whose splendor and majesty are beyond comprehension, and our singing should reflect that. That’s what we’re doing.

So Psalm 96 instructs us to exalt God, and this ministry goes upward to Him. Do you see that? Psalm 96 highlights this first primary ministry of our upward direction, and when the church sings, we are lifting glory to God’s name, His goodness, His works, His salvation, His sovereignty up to Him in worship. This is where everything starts. As I said, every other direction we’re going to look at flows out of this one. If we’re not doing that, the other ones aren’t going to happen. It’s just designed to work this way.

2. Outward: Proclaim Him

But now, did you notice something in those last verses we read? Look at verse 3: “Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.” That’s not bad grammar. That’s good grammar. Peoples. They’re people groups, and they should all hear this. Look at verse 10: “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.'” Do you see what’s happening here? While we’re singing to God, because He commanded that—sing—while we’re singing upward to God, proclaiming His salvation and His glory, God intends that singing to be heard and actively be at work in another direction: outward.

So our second direction that this ministry of corporate singing works is outward, to proclaim Him. This is evangelistic. This first one we looked at—upward—is doxological. It means to bring glory to Him. This one is evangelical. We sing so that it works outwardly. Now, we’re not changing our attention, are we? Our attention is still on God, but we’re doing it in a way that anybody listening gets an idea of the kind of God we’re singing to. You see it right here in Psalm 96. While we sing to the Lord, proclaiming His salvation, we do it in a way that the nations hear the glory of His wonderful deeds, of His salvation. And when we sing, it testifies to a watching and listening world: our God is real. This is who He is. He’s awesome. He’s sovereign. He’s good. Salvation is by Him and through Him, and it’s wonderful.

Our singing tells people that we’re confident in Him. The singing of God’s people proclaims God loudly and clearly and joyfully. It has this evangelistic effect, and it works outward from believers to the world.

This is not just in the Old Testament. In Acts 16—the reference is on your sheet, but you don’t have to turn there right now—Paul and Silas, two of the earliest leaders of the church, have been beaten and thrown into a Roman prison for preaching the gospel. They’re sitting in the inner cell, feet locked in stocks in the middle of the night. And what are they doing? Verse 25 tells us they were praying and singing hymns to God. Then it says this: “And the prisoners were listening to them.” Think about that. These two guys, Paul and Silas, don’t have a platform. They don’t have a worship band behind them. They’re bleeding in a dark cell, and they sing. And the people around them heard it, and it got their attention. They were listening. That’s because when someone sings with conviction about the goodness and faithfulness of God in the worst circumstances of life, people listen. It’s one of the most powerful testimonies the watching world can witness.

I’ll bring this into our context for a second—into our own home church, into our own pews. What are the people around you hearing when you sing, or when you don’t sing? What are they hearing? This outward ministry is potent. There are testimonies—if you don’t know of any, I can share a few with you—of people who really started to get the idea of who God really is because they came and heard God’s people sing with a conviction and a joy they’d never heard before. This happens all over the world, sometimes in languages they don’t understand. But they hear the truth, and they hear that these people really believe it. And it’s a testimony. I just want you to be encouraged by that.

In 1 Corinthians 14:24-26—again, you don’t have to turn there, but I’ll read it real quick—Paul is explaining to the Corinthians how to do church rightly. He actually uses this. He says that if all are prophesying, or proclaiming the truth and wisdom of God, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by this truth. He is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you. Then Paul says, “What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, have a psalm. Have a teaching.” Each one of you has this truth, is basically what he’s saying—a tongue or an interpretation; at that time they were talking about all the gifts. But then he says this: “Let all things be done for edification.”

Look, Paul is saying that when an unbeliever walks into the room—this is in your pews. This is not the nations out there. This is not across the street. This is in your pews. There are people sitting next to you. When someone who has been sitting in these seats for years but hasn’t trusted Christ for himself, and the people of God are actively and earnestly proclaiming truth together in one, it has power to convict and to explain. They see people around them who genuinely believe what they’re singing, and they’re forced to reckon with it. Paul says they declare, “God is certainly among you.”

And I just want you to understand: that’s not hypothetical. There are people in our church, maybe in this room, who come regularly, who enjoy being here, and have heard the gospel many times, but just haven’t yet put their trust in Jesus. Every time we sing, they’re watching and listening. It’s not the only thing—this is not the only proclamation of truth. There’s preaching, there’s sharing, there’s fellowship, there are so many other gifts. But one of the graces of the church is this gathered singing of the saints. Those who truly believe this have a ministry, and the Holy Spirit works through it. He commands it so that as we direct our attention to Him and it has an upward effect, it also has an outward effect.

Again, I have to ask myself: how effective do you think this ministry of singing is to believers among us and to a watching world if, on Sunday morning, I would get up and just choose not to sing? Or maybe I sing bored. I can’t, because I’m up there and I’m leading everybody pretty much every time. But I could. I could be checked out in my mind. How about you? What are you communicating? Does the unbeliever listening to you sing think, “Wow, these people really believe this. Wow, this is really important stuff. Wow, I should really give my attention to whatever it is they’re singing about. Wow, this is really compelling”?

I’ve got to tell you, I am encouraged by your singing. I’m not really picking on you at this point. But I do get to brag a little bit: this church sings. And it’s a testimony to the people who come, to the guests who are here. There are people who have visited from other churches and go, “Wow.” In fact, I’m the music guy, so I sometimes hear interesting comments, like, “I notice you have a lot of dead space in your service. I mean, even during communion there’s no music, and there are transitions. You’re not keeping the music going. But man, I hear people singing.” And I say, “That’s not accidental.” It’s not the ambience of the music that communicates, but when people open their mouths and they believe it, they sing.

So I just want to encourage you: if you know God, if you are His, sing out. Sing knowing there is an evangelistic purpose in the people of God singing with full-throated hope and truth—voices to their God.

3. Inward: Shape Our Hearts

So the first two directions that this ministry of corporate singing actively works in are both directed away from ourselves. The first one is upward, directing attention toward God—this doxological praise. The other one is outward, to proclaim to a watching world. But God didn’t design corporate singing only for what it does toward Him and toward others. He designed it for what it also does in us. It’s powerfully working at the same time in a direction toward us. Turn to Psalm 103.

And before we jump into the next one, let’s set it up. As you’re turning to Psalm 103, I’m going to read something from Psalm 42 for us to consider. I’ll let you get there so we don’t get too confused. Psalm 42 starts with this inscription: “For the choir director.” It’s a song. In this song is a prayer expressing the people’s need for God’s protection and help. And listen to who the audience is. They’re singing a song, and the audience is sung to. It says this in Psalm 42:5:

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
for the help of His presence.

Do you hear that? Psalm 42 is a song written for the choir director to be sung in the great congregation, in the gathering, when they’re together. And the words of truth are directed to the singer’s own soul. That’s why they’re trying to get everybody to sing with them. Everyone, sing. You’ve got a choir director for this. Put this song on their lips. “Soul, why are you in despair?”

The same ministry of the gathered church in corporate singing that works upward toward God and outward toward the watching world also works inward, shaping the heart of the one who sings. I need you to be convinced that this is a ministry that God, by His Spirit, does.

Take a look now at Psalm 103, verses 1 through 5.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget none of His benefits,
who pardons all your iniquities,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion,
who satisfies your years with good things,
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The psalm continues proclaiming God’s righteous deeds, His righteous judgments, His faithfulness, His compassion, His loving kindness—continuing to do what we saw in the first direction of our singing. It’s extolling and praising God. And while it’s working in that direction, and while it’s also being a witness to anybody listening, and ministering to anyone’s soul who is singing it in the great congregation of the saints, what an interesting effect this has. Within the song, God’s people are extolling God’s character and His actions, and it’s just clear that the divinely inspired purpose of this is to minister to one’s own soul with truth. Do you get it? We don’t merely sing to express how we feel. We sing to shape how we feel.

Ever had to do that? Singing doesn’t manufacture emotion, despite what a lot of worship scenes do. A lot of worship songs are written and performed to evoke emotion, but that’s just a really fleeting thing. That moment goes as soon as they walk out of the room. That’s not really effective. This kind of truth is. When the Holy Spirit, working through His Word and the truth of His Word, is working on you, it shapes our hearts. Corporate singing has an inward working direction that shapes us.

Singing is an active strategy to preach truth to our own souls, fortify our faith, and realign our straying emotions with God’s reality. There’s a reason God chose singing for this. Look in Deuteronomy 31. I was just reading this. Israel is about to enter the Promised Land, and God knows—He tells Moses plainly—that after Moses dies, the people will turn away and forget everything about Him, actually just practically in their living. They will stop living faithfully and forget what it’s like to live faithfully. So what does God do? He doesn’t just say, “Well, write the law down again.” It’s already written. Do you know what He says? This is interesting. He tells Moses, “Write a song, and put it in their mouths.” In other words, teach it to them. Why? Later, in verse 21, it says, “Because this song will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring.”

God knows how He wired us. We forget sermons. We forget lessons. We forget our own habits sometimes if we stray long enough. But songs? Wow, they get stuck in your head. Man, I still have little jingles from cartoons and advertisements—just commercials on TV. I don’t know if you guys ever watch broadcast TV anymore. It’s all on demand, but you still see ads, right? When they come over and over and over, they just get stuck in your head. I can still sing them to you. They’re still there. And God is saying, “I’m going to use that. I’ve created music in a special way, and it’s going to get lodged there.” So He says, “Teach it to them.” We forget lessons; the song stays.

God designed singing to lodge truth so deep in us that even when we forget other things and they fade, the song remains somehow. That’s why He tells us to sing. He’s not just giving us something to do on Sunday morning. He’s actually preparing our souls for Tuesday afternoon.

And we need this, because Jeremiah 17:9 says that by nature our heart is desperately sick and deceitful. On my own, my heart will tell me untrue things about myself, about my circumstances, and about God. I’ll wake up in the morning and think, “Oh, this day is awful”—it’s a lie. If I listen to some of those things that my heart tells me by nature, and it’s not informed by Scripture, I will spiral into despair. A powerful antidote that God prescribes in Scripture is this: commit truth to memory. Preach it to yourselves. You ever heard that? There’s a time you’ve got to stop listening to yourself. You’ve got to preach truth to yourself.

In Scripture, we see that song is used for that purpose over and over and over. “Teach it to them, and they won’t forget the song.” And then it says this at the end of Deuteronomy 31: that song in their children’s mouths will convict them. They will hear these things and see how far off base they’ve been living, and they’ll go, “Wow, that’s not nothing. But we know that song. Wow.”

What kind of songs are you putting in your mind? Are they useful? Do they help preach truth to yourself when you’re in despair? Do they correct thinking that says God is not near, God is not faithful, God doesn’t love me, He doesn’t give me what I need? Do you know any songs that correct that? That’s why we teach them here. That’s why we get you all singing them. I say it every couple of Sundays: I hope this gets stuck in your head and is helpful throughout the week. Why? Because I need them. I hope you memorize verses too—I mean, that’s the gold right there. But just know that singing is a helpful mnemonic. It’s a memory device that helps us remember truth even when we forget other things.

So when our hearts are heavy, fearful, apathetic, or sinfully distracted, we need to be diligent to stop listening to our hearts. We must preach truth to ourselves. God’s Word leads us in doing this very thing in worship, when we’re directing attention to Him with truth. So we have good songs to help us with that.

Even when you’re feeling that way and you don’t feel like singing—have you ever felt that way? You’re coming to church and you’re like, “Oh, this week’s been awful. I don’t feel like singing.” Look, what I’m telling you is that that is the antidote. Christian, your soul needs to hear you and 500 other people saying, “Soul, why are you in despair? Soul, listen up.” So we have our upward to exalt God, our outward to proclaim Him, and our inward to shape our hearts. And on top of that, we have 500 other people in solidarity singing the exact same thing. So if you’re not convincing yourself, be convinced by the brother or sister standing next to you—or maybe behind you—singing out, because they need this too, and it’s proved it to them. When your soul doesn’t feel like singing, that’s the very time to open your mouth, be obedient, and sing it to yourself.

4. Churchward: Edify His People

This introduces the last one we have. The ministry of our corporate singing works upward—doxologically—to exalt God; outward—evangelistically—to proclaim Him; inward—to shape our own hearts, all happening at the same time; and lastly, churchward. I know it’s not really a word, but I’m making it one. Churchward: to edify His people. Turn to Colossians 3. There’s a sister passage to this in Ephesians 5 as well. Paul says the same thing to the Ephesians—slightly different wording, but same point.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Look, I’ve heard people try to explain this away. “It just means that your heart has this inward song.” No, it’s talking about singing. It’s not the only ministry you do when, with all wisdom, you’re teaching and admonishing one another because the word of Christ dwells within you. But here we see this other direction that our singing works in. It’s already actively ministering to one another.

The command here is to let the word of Christ dwell richly in you. When we are obedient to this, when the word of Christ is dwelling richly in us, when we’re meditating on it, when we’re reading it for ourselves, when we’re sitting under the teaching and it’s dwelling richly—like, we’re dwelling in it—it’s not just washing past us or skimming right over our heads. Specifically here, in the context, it’s dwelling in the realities of the gospel and His salvation, and more broadly in all of God’s truth. There is a ministry that’s supposed to flow from us: we teach and admonish one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We sing to God in thankfulness—again, all these directions at once—and our singing is a potent ministry of God’s Word to the people standing next to you.

You’re actively singing, and the Holy Spirit is making it effective to the church you’re singing in, because they hear your voice. Just remember: you have a powerful ministry. Don’t stop giving glory to God and turn and just start preaching to someone with song. That’s not necessarily what it means. Although you can grab someone and say, “Sing with me. Bring your attention to God.”

Just to put it another way, there’s something about people who are transformed by the grace of God—by the gospel, the word of Christ. That’s what that means there, the word of Christ. There’s something about people who are transformed by that singing. When we are transformed by that grace, we grow in understanding and in wisdom of what daily life in Christ is. We recognize the realities of His truth. We overflow with thankfulness in our hearts. It brings a natural disposition. This is what the gospel does.

I get it. We don’t always feel that. But an important way to let that spill over is that we sing when we’re together. The songs we sing are to be full of the rich truths and wisdom that cause us to overflow in thankfulness to God. And in doing this together, we teach and admonish one another in spiritual truth that we need to hear, and we need to hear often. He says the same thing in Ephesians 5. I’ll not read that at this point.

But look, if you’re a Christian, you’re called to this. When you sing to the church, you’re actively teaching and admonishing the people around you. This is an incredibly valuable ministry to the church. So participate. It’s important that you play this part. Don’t withhold that.

And friends, it’s a ministry to me in those seasons of life when life is hard or when I’m struggling spiritually. I need to hear that conviction of the church. There are times where I’ve just wept, and I’m thankful that you can just close your eyes and hear people who are strong, and who are doing well not just because circumstances are great, but because their faith is secure and they believe this stuff. When we sing songs like we did earlier, or when we sing songs like “Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor”—this is why I do this—I stop playing my guitar and I step back from the mic and I sing as loud as I can, so y’all know you’re supposed to be singing at me, and I’m supposed to be singing at you, and y’all are supposed to be singing with each other. We just need that.

There’s a reason why armies do their kind of cry as they get going, and they have their chant. But that’s usually kind of just a chant. This is truth fortified by the Holy Spirit, backed by the Word of God, bought by blood that Christ shed on the cross. It’s not going to be left out. These are promises that aren’t going to be weak.

And here’s what’s even more remarkable about this: the fruitfulness of this part of the ministry doesn’t depend on how well you sing or how perfectly you engage. God, by His Spirit, bears fruit through the faithful singing of His people. This is His ministry, given to you as a grace. And your part is to participate.

It doesn’t get less effective because the guy over there is a hypocrite. Okay, you see what I’m saying? Sometimes we start to logic this out. When there’s a group of people singing truth and there is a core group of people who believe it, and there are people who are not believing it but are singing it, that’s okay. You know what? They’re learning it for later. It will teach them. I learned songs before I was a Christian that later made me go, “Oh!” Teach it to them. Get it on their lips. Even when they’re not living faithfully, they’re starting to go, “Oh. I didn’t understand why I needed that, but now I’m feeling like I wish there were a solution to this. And the solution is in this song I’ve been singing since I was nine.”

Do you see all the many directions that, just by God’s wisdom in saying, “Here’s My truth. Now put it to song. Put it to their lips. And I’m going to gift people with the ability to direct choirs, to play music, to sing out loud, and to do it so much it will draw people in who don’t even like to sing—but they’re going to sing these words. Make it a part of My people.” Do you see His wisdom in it? They get to exalt Him because He’s worthy. It gets to proclaim it outward. It gets to speak it and shape our own souls with it. And you get the support of at least hundreds of voices. And it’s happening all the time.

I need you to know: if you love the Lord, this is a ministry that you should pray about. Just as we would pray for the preaching of God’s Word on a Sunday morning—you should: “Lord, Your Word is about to be preached. Make it go out. Make it change. Make it change me. Make it change the people around me.” What we’re about to sing, I pray that it would have these effects, and that it would go upward and outward and inward and churchward, and that Your Holy Spirit, in all the grace that You pour out in that, would affect us, because we need it. Anybody wake up feeling like they need grace? I need it every day in great measure. This is one of those means of grace that He gives the church.

Conclusion

Takeaways. Look, every time this church opens its mouth to sing, that one act works in these four powerful directions. It’s not four separate activities. It’s happening all at once every time we sing together. So next time we stand to sing together—Lord willing, next Sunday, again, we’ll come back and do it again—I want you to be encouraged that the Lord is actively working through this ministry, and that He’s asking you to step in and participate.

You’re not singing because someone asked you to. You’re not singing because everybody else is. You’re not singing because it’s just what we do and it’s a tradition. You are stepping into a ministry that God designed—one that exalts Him, proclaims Him, shapes your heart, and strengthens the people standing next to you, whom you love. That’s the church. Every single one of you has been given this ministry by God. Don’t withhold it.

I’m going to pray. I would love for you guys to get a chance to talk about it. Ask me questions if you’ve got more. I believe this stuff because, obviously, it’s my job, but really it’s just such a blessing to open God’s Word and be encouraged about the reality that this is necessary. I just hope you’re encouraged by that as well. Let me pray.

Prayer

Lord, thank You that You are so clear in Scripture and so wise in Your prescriptions—not just to give us truth, but to give us means by which we can read it and memorize it. Lord, most of these songs were written back before Your people had it written down, and so in an oral tradition they were having to hold on to it. Thank You for making song effective in that.

Thank You that You made music that affects our feelings before we ever even know what it’s about. We know this when we watch movies. We know when to be scared. We know when it’s supposed to be happy, and the scene hasn’t started yet. Lord, when we marry that with truth, thank You that it sticks in our minds and it affects our feelings and can be useful to preach and remember truth.

Lord, I pray that in all of these ministries we would grow. I pray that each of these people would grow in that, that our church would grow in this upward, outward, inward, and churchward directional ministry happening all the time by Your Spirit. And we ask that You’d help us participate well.

Lord, I pray that You would grow us to appreciate that and to feel the purpose in it. And I pray that we’d encourage each other in that too, so that we would be purposeful in our time here, and that we would just enjoy how You’ve drawn us into Your presence for Your glory and our good.

Now, Lord, as we discuss it, I pray that You would just give us good, open hearts to share with each other in ways that help press this into our lives and encourage us and stir us. In Jesus’ name, amen.