Principles of Music

That we play and so it's necessary for us to understand

how we get to the music that we get to and what the principles

are that we use to determine what we will sing and what we

won't sing. And, and obviously there's

there's really not a double standard that you can have one

thing in the church and and do one thing completely different

at home. These are standards of music

that should be not just in the church, but in your home as

well. So all of these things that

we're going to talk about over the next couple weeks are things

I think that will be a help to us.

Added to that, we're going to add some new things to our

singing in this coming year. I'll talk about that in a, in a

little bit. But one of the things that we're

going to try to do is adding, adding some singing of the

Psalms. And not just we do that

sometimes. Hey, get your Bible out.

Let's sing these verses. But, but, but using a Psalter

like what they used to use in the 1800s and, and into the

early 1900s with Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley and some of these

men who took the entire Psalms and wrote them into a poem form

and then sang them. And they, they match different

meters and they match different tunes.

And, and some of them, most of them are tunes that we are

familiar with. They come from other songs that

we sing to make it easy. So you don't have to memorize

the tune and the words, but you memorize the, you sing it to a

familiar tune and then put those words with it that have the same

meter and everything else. And obviously it's very, very

doctrinal at that point because you're literally singing the,

the, the words right out of the Psalms.

And so we're going to be adding some of those kind of things and

I'll explain that later. But it's important to understand

some of the basic principles of music.

I did a long series on music back in 2022, the series that I

did on what I believe and why. And I'm sure where's my brother

Josh? I'm sure we have that in a, in a

playlist on our church YouTube page.

And you can go back and watch it.

I think I did 15 lessons on music.

So it's very, very extensive. This is not going to be anything

close to that. And, and honestly, this is not

even, I'm not even, I'm not even reteaching what I already gave

you. This is a completely new mini

series, I guess you could call it.

Obviously that many of the principles are going to be

similar because the the principles of music are always

the same. But in an effort to be somewhat

brief, we're not going to take a look at at all of these things

tonight. But the Bible is filled with

music boy, if you start to go back through and I and that's

what I'm saying I wish we had some time to go back.

We would literally spend one whole service just looking at

verses that talk about music in the Bible.

There are hundreds and hundreds of references to music in the

Bible. The Old Testament was filled

with music. The the the largest book in the

Bible is a hymn book. The book of Psalms is all hymns,

all songs that they sang. And so when the Bible says that

Jesus after they a participated in the Last Supper and and they

went out after they had sung in him, right, where do you think

he's saying that him from? Wasn't likely.

It was straight out of the the hymn book that they had, which

was the book of Psalms. And so all the principles in

music that we'll look at tonight come from the hundreds of

references to music. Added to that, singing has

always been a part of the church from from the early church, the

first church to the early church to all the churches throughout

all the ages, they were singing churches and from all of what we

read and what of what everything is going to be like in the

future, we will be singing for all of eternity.

So what better thing to focus on and to pay attention to than the

music that we have in our church.

And not just that, but but when it, when it, when a church

starts to go in the wrong direction, one of the first

things to go is almost always the music.

The music always starts to slide and then everything else follows

closely behind it. That's when you lose your

standards in dress. That's when you lose your

standards in the word of God. And next thing you know, you're

not, you're still preaching from the King James Bible, but you're

using other versions to study from and using other versions,

versions to quote and mention. And the next thing you know,

you're not even using the King James Version of the Bible

anymore. Many times it starts with music

and you think that that's not the case.

I'm, I've been, I've been an independent Baptist for my

entire life, 42 years now. I didn't know what was going on

at 234 years old, but, but about 5 years old when I started

knowing what was going on until today.

I've seen many, many, many churches and I've been in

hundreds of churches myself and seeing exactly what I'm talking

about tonight. The music goes and everything

else follows right behind it. This is not some, well, this is

something that we can do if we want to.

This is something that we can pay attention to if we get the

time. This is something that we

absolutely must pay attention to and we need to understand music

so well that we can test it by the Word of God and test it by

those biblical standards. We have to be able to discern

things like soft rock and honky tonk and dance rhythms and, and

chords that are used in CCM. You can, I can, I can listen to

the 1st 10 seconds of a song and tell you if it's a contemporary

Christian music song or not. Because they use a certain type

of chord, they have a certain type of sound.

And those are things that we have to get to the point where

we can understand those, obviously the, the worldly vocal

styles. And I'll tell you this, the more

you listen to the world's music, the more your sacred music is

going to sound like the world's music because that's who you're

copying, right? And the more you listen to

contemporary Christian music, all of their vocal styles are

very similar to what you find in in rock songs or in light rock

songs or whatever you want to call it, pop music.

When that's what you're listening to, then even if

you're singing a hymn, it's going to sound like a pop song.

It's going to sound like a contemporary Christian music

song because that's what you're emulating and that's what you're

listening to. So it's not enough to just

publish a list of all the songs that we're not going to sing,

right? We don't have a list like that.

And there's, there's a reason why, number one, we're never

going to be able to exhaust all the all the songs that we

shouldn't sing. And #2 there's always going to

be more songs that are being added to it.

So rather than just saying all of these are songs that we don't

sing, and these are the songs that are OK, what we do is let's

look at some biblical principles that will help us to distinguish

between the songs that we won't sing and the songs that we will

sing, the songs that are not pleasing to the Lord and the

songs that are pleasing to the Lord.

And, and, and this is not something that that I'm just

forcing on the church. I'm putting this on myself as

well, right? We, we do everything we can to

listen to the right type of music in our own home.

It's something that obviously, you know, early on in, in our,

in the church, it was something that we didn't pay as close of

attention to, honestly, as we should have paid attention to.

And so now we're going back and, you know, we have a thick, thick

notebook full of all the songs that we've sung as a family or

that I've sung or that my kids have sung.

And, and we were going through some of those songs last night

when we were trying to pick out a song that we were going to

sing for today. Well, maybe it wasn't last

night. It was earlier than that, I

guess, but we were looking through all of these songs and

trying to figure out what we're going to sing.

And it was like, well, that's a song that we used to sing, but

wow, I didn't realize where that came from.

All right, we're not going to sing that one anymore.

All right, I didn't realize where that song came from.

That's not, that's not a song that we can sing.

And we've, we've, we've weeded out a lot of songs that we have

sung in the past that as you start to apply these biblical

principles to, you realize very quickly, these are not songs

that are going to move us in the right direction.

Maybe they're borderline songs that if you were to sing it,

it's not going to, you know, it's not going to push our

church into apostasy. It's not going to push our

church away from the truth of God's word and things like that.

But it's taking us in the wrong direction.

And it's building a bridge to something that we don't want to

be a part of, building a bridge to somewhere that we don't want

to go. And so that's why it's it's very

important when you bring music for approval there.

These are the basic principles that we want to apply to a song

to evaluate it. Sometimes it's not the song

itself, but who wrote the song. Sometimes it's, it's not only

who wrote it, but who sang that song to make it popular.

Let's be honest, with the Internet age that we live in

now, you hear a song that somebody gets up here and sings

and you like it and you want to go listen to it again.

What are you going to do? You're going to go Google it and

you're going to find it on YouTube.

And the first one that comes up, the second one, the third one,

the 4th one that comes up. It matters who sings it.

Because if, if, if I sang a song that I took and toned down and

made it sound OK. And the only thing that you can

hear when you to listen to that song again is somebody rocking

out to whatever song that I just sang.

That's not helpful for you, right?

Which is why when you turn in music, I say, where can I listen

to this song? Tell me, tell me where I can

hear it. And you say, oh, go, go search

it on YouTube and I go listen to it on YouTube.

And the next thing you know, the rocking out together, It's not a

song that's going to be approved because who wrote it is

important, but also who made it popular and who is the popular

ones that are singing it today, right.

You could take, you could theoretically take a song that's

written by something like Hillsong or Elevation or some of

these other really popular contemporary Christian artists

today. And you can, you can tone it

down and take out all the, and drums and you can take out all

the sliding and all the vocal techniques and all of these

things that they use to try to make it sound like a pop song.

And you could sing it the right way, but it's building a bridge

to something else. Because what's going to happen

is number one, this is what I've always found to, to, to bring a

contemporary Christian music song into the church.

You have to be listening to those songs, right?

How did you even find out that it was a song that you could

possibly sing? Somebody's listening to it

somewhere, right? Somebody is jamming out to these

CCM artists in their car and they're like, oh, that's a song

that I can take and tone down and make it sound good for

church. Well, you're fishing in the

wrong pond. That's the problem, right?

There are thousands and thousands and thousands of hymns

that you can sing that that some are not even in print anymore,

that you can find in old song books.

I'm telling you, I just found one, believe it or not, at

Barnes and Noble of all places. Barnes and Noble, an old reprint

of a songbook from 1875. It has 13184 songs in that book.

13184 songs. Well, I can't find any music to

sing. Well, I got 13184 of them that

you can pick from if you want. We don't have to fish in the

contemporary Christian music pond to find songs that are

uplifting and songs that that honor the Lord at the same time.

And so the first thing that a lot of people do when they start

looking for a song is they're just listening to the radio.

Wrong place to start, wrong place to start.

Start in, start in the church. Go, go, go listen to some songs

that you hear from some of the preachers that we have coming

through. Listen to their services, figure

out what, what, what music they're doing in their church.

And if it's a song that, wow, that's a really nice song.

All right, let's evaluate it and see where did they find that

song from Just because it's it's a church that we associate with

or have a pastor that comes through.

Now, I try to be very careful with who comes through, and we

don't have a lot of people that come through because of that

very reason, but just because they have come to our church and

preached and they did this song in their church.

But maybe their standards is a little bit different than ours.

And listen, if that's what they want to do in their church, they

have the freedom and the right to do some of the to have a

little bit of that Christian liberty to play the songs and

sing the songs that they want to sing.

But at the same time, we are going to evaluate it by these

principles and we're going to try to hold our music standard

as high as we can hold it to make sure that our music is as

pleasing to the Lord as it possibly can be.

So I hope you understand the importance of having these

standards and having these this set of principles, if you will,

that we follow for our music. So tonight what I want to do is

give you some of these biblical principles of music.

I'm only going to give you a few of them tonight.

Really, I'm kind of laying the groundwork for some of the

things that we'll talk about the next time.

Next week will be different, but we'll pick it up the week after

that. But obviously these are not

exhaustive by any means. These are not all of the

principles, but they'll give you some things that you can use to

test the music that you sing, the music that you listen to.

OK, Because I know that not everybody in our church sings.

Not everybody in our church is musical.

Not everybody is turning in songs that they're going to sing

for church. But how do you decide what music

you should and should not listen to on your own?

Well, these are the principles that we want to talk about.

Let's pray. Let's, let's ask for God's

blessing on the message, and then we'll jump into a few of

these tonight. Father, again, we thank you so

much for your goodness to us. Thank you for the opportunity

that we have to be here. God, may this be a help to us as

we study your word. Again, we thank you for all that

you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.

Now #1 and these are not necessarily in order of

importance. Some of these are going to kind

of overlap each other. So it might sound like maybe

that one should have gone first, this one should have gone

second, whatever. Some of these are going to

overlap a little bit, and so they're not in necessarily any

particular order. But here's what we have to

understand. First of all #1 music must be

overseen by the pastor. Music must be overseen by the

pastor. You're there in Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

If you're not, you can turn there.

Acts chapter 20. I'm going to look at a few

Acts 20 · chapter mention

verses here. Acts chapter 20 and verse #28

Acts 20 · chapter mention

the Bible says, take heed, therefore, unto yourselves.

This is this is to the church there, and to all the flock, and

to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you

overseers to feed the Church of God, which he has purchased with

his own blood. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 13. He's made us overseers to feed

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

the Church of God. It's the responsibility of the

pastor to be an overseer. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

#17. Obey them that have the rule

over you, and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as

they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not

with grief, for that is unprofitable for you.

One more first Peter chapter 5. First Peter chapter 5, verse #2

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention 1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

The Bible says this. Feed the flock of God, which is

among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but

willingly. Not for filthy Luker, but of a

ready mind. Pastors are called bishops,

which is an overseer. It's a Superintendent, if you

will. And as God stewards, it's the

responsibility of a pastor to watch over every aspect of the

congregation's life and of the ministry to make sure that

things are done according to God's will.

It is my responsibility to make sure that this church is going

in a direction that is pleasing to God.

They pastors have to know what's happening in order to protect

the flock from the danger that's out there and from the error

that's out there. And so it's my responsibility as

a pastor to study the issue of music and to understand these

principles of music and to know what the worldly music sounds

like and what the godly music sounds like.

And I'm not saying that I'm out here listening to all the

world's music. There's so much of it.

If you, if you know what the, what the, what godly music

sounds like, then the second you hear something that's not godly,

you can tell the difference, right?

Maybe you've heard this before, but there are there are people

in the government whose job it is to pick out counterfeit bills

and make sure that they don't get put into circulation or re

put back into circulation. Many times somebody obviously

makes a forgery and it goes into circulation and it's their job

to pull that out. Some of those counterfeits are

very, very close to the original.

But you think about how many people are out there making

counterfeit bills all the time. I mean, tons and tons and tons

and tons of people. Do you know how hard it would be

for them to find every single counterfeit bill and know where

every little mark on the counterfeit bill is to be able

to tell that it's that it's a counterfeit?

Oh, you know what they do? They study the real bill to the

point where they know every single thing about it.

So that the second they see a counterfeit bill, it sticks out

like a sore thumb to them because they're like, that's not

right, that's not right, that's not right, that's not right.

And they can tell not because they've memorized all of the

wrong bills, but they know so well the right one.

And that's exactly what it what it is when it comes to music.

We should know the principles of godly music so well that the

second we hear something that's not godly, it should really

stick out to us and we'll know this is not a kind of music that

I should listen to. This is not the kind of music

that we'll do in the in church because that's not it's, it's,

it's a counterfeit. So it's my responsibility to be

educated about sacred music and to know how to discern the

various popular sounds of music, the soft rock and all of those

things. And that something that I have

to be constantly learning. But honestly, it's something

that you need to be learning as well.

My job to teach you, but it's your job to learn.

And I'm so blessed that I took music lessons when I was growing

up and I've been playing music and singing my entire life.

And, and so, you know, again, it's, it helps that I grew up in

a place that had good, strong music standards.

And so it's very easy for me to discern between the good and the

bad, But I'm human too. And, and, and the music of the

world will appeal to our flesh often and we like the sound of

it. So just because I'm the pastor

and just because I know what godly music should sound like

doesn't mean that I'm never tempted by those things either.

Listen, it's, it's, it's, it's easy to allow the wrong type of

music in, right? It's very easy because somebody

comes in, they want to sing this song.

All right, go ahead and sing it. And they're all over the place.

And it sounds like, you know, something that they just pulled

off of the, you know, top 100 charts or whatever it happens to

be. And well, I just won't say

anything about it. That's the easy way.

The hard way is to say, no, no, no, I'm sorry, but that's not

the kind of music that we do here.

That's not music that fits in with these biblical principles.

That's hard. It's I don't, I don't want to

tell people no. I don't want to say no.

You can't do that because many times people come with a song

and they're like, oh, this is a really good one.

You're really going to like this.

And I look at it, I'm like, well, the words look all right,

let's go see about it. And only thing that I can find

is somebody that's singing out with, you know, purple lights

and dancing around on the stage and all of these other things.

And it's a bridge to the wrong place.

And so I have to say no. And I don't like doing that.

But if you want to truly understand how to discern the

right type of music, then maybe take a sacred music class.

There's nothing wrong with that. Find a good book.

I've got several good books on music that you could that you

could read if you really want to understand the idea of sacred

music. But it's the pastor's job to

appoint the right people to be in charge of the church's music.

And it's my, it's my job to approve all of the special music

because if, if somebody gets up and sings a song that's not

pleasing to the Lord, I failed, right?

And it may not be me. It may be somebody that I asked

to fill in that place and kind of be the gatekeeper.

But nobody's looking at the gatekeeper and saying, Oh, the

gatekeeper missed that one. They're looking at the pastor

and they're saying, how did you allow that in the church, Right?

It's my responsibility. That's what I'm saying.

I'm the one that's going to answer to God for it.

It's my responsibility. And I do have people in place,

particularly my wife, because she's well aware of our

principles of music and she knows what I'm looking for.

But many times she'll come to me and she'll say, what do you

think about this song? Here's here's what I found out

about it. Here's the author.

Here's the, you know, here's the, this is what it sounds

like. What do you think?

And I have to make a decision. And sometimes it's, well, I

think that'll be fine. There's nothing wrong with that.

Or sometimes it's like, I think that's I think that's going to

take us in the wrong direction. We can't, we can't do that song.

And if I'm the gatekeeper than the wrong music is if I'm not

the gatekeeper, than that wrong music is going to slip in and

it, and it's going to become Levin.

Levin that's going to increase and all of these principles that

we're going to talk about, they can all be true and, and and we

can have them and they can be something that we say we hold in

place. And we can say that these are

principles that that we hold for our church.

And this is the principles that we filter all of our music

through. But if a pastor doesn't take the

responsibility of training and inspecting and teaching and

expecting and overseeing and, and you know, then all of these

principles. They're not going to be taught,

they're not going to be enforced.

And who cares if you have them in place if the music that we're

singing is violating the very principles that we say that we

have. And I'm going to stand before

God someday and answer to him for what happened in this

church. And it's a, it's a great

responsibility on my shoulders. I'm going to answer to God for

what happened. I'm going to answer to God for

the direction of this church. And if I allow the music to come

in and move us away from where we should be, then I'm the one

that's going to answer for that. So of course, I'm going to do

everything that I can to make sure that our music is straight.

And I'm sorry if it offends you that I said no, you couldn't

sing that song. But I'm the one that's going to

answer to God for the church, not you.

Now, maybe God will judge you. I don't know if God's going to

judge you for introducing the wrong kind of music when you

knew that that it was wrong, or maybe you didn't know it was

wrong. But that's why it's my

responsibility. And that's why this first point

is that music must be overseen by the pastor.

Your responsibility as somebody who sings music in this church

is simply to follow the guidelines that we've laid out

to make sure that everything that's done in our church in the

area of music is pleasing to the Lord.

So it is my responsibility to oversee the music.

The pastor has the responsibility to oversee the

music in the church. But here's the second principle

#2 church music must be sung and played by spirit filled Saints

who are in dwelt with God's Word.

Let's turn over to First Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

See, when you're dealing with the music issue, God always

begins with the spiritual condition of the church and with

the individual singers and those who are playing instruments and

everything else. It's your responsibility as

somebody who is singing music and doing music in the church to

make sure that you are filled with the Spirit of God while

you're singing and doing that music and doing that doing the

playing first first Peter chapter 2 verse 5.

1 Peter 2:5

Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and

holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable

to God by Jesus Christ sound congregational singing and

that's why this is not just for the people who are singing

specials. It's the entire congregation.

All of us are participate in congregational singing.

Sound congregational singing requires a spiritual house made

of living stones. That's what the Bible says.

And that's referring to born again people who are actively

functioning as holy priests in that priesthood role.

Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

We find the definition of spirit filling in the context of

Ephesians chapter 5 and verse #18 Ephesians chapter 5 and

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

verse #18 and be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be

filled with the Spirit. What that means is, and that's

why we say let's go back a couple verses and look in the

context. It means not controlled by

anything other than the Spirit of God, verse 11 or sorry, verse

18. Not drunk with wine, not the

works of darkness as we read about in verse #11 spirit filled

means not spiritually asleep, not carnal, not lukewarm, right?

Verse 14 Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepeth, and

arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Listen, it's, it's, it's not for the carnal Christian to get up

and sing in front of the congregation.

You ought to be spirit filled when you get up to sing in front

of the congregation. And, and it's your

responsibility to make sure that you are filled with the Holy

Spirit. Now, most people are not going

to know, right? Most people are not going to

know when you stand up in front of the congregation to sing what

you have going on in your life. They're not going to know what

you have hidden in your heart. They're not going to know

necessarily. If you are filled with the

spirit now, it will become obvious at some point, but it's

your responsibility to be spirit filled when you get up to sing.

What is it that that makes somebody get up and sing and and

emulate the world in the way that they sing?

Even if the words are fine, you can sing a hymn in the wrong

way, right? What is it that makes you want

to emulate the pop stars and all of that stuff, right?

I mean, CCM is, is nothing but pop music with Christian words,

right? And when you're listening to all

of those things, you get up and sing like that.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that you're not filled with

the Spirit. Now these these CCM artists all

want to talk about how they're filled with the God, you know,

they're filled with the Spirit and God's just working through

them and all of these other things.

The second they get the opportunity to crossover and go

into pop, they do it. It's not the spirit filling them

that's giving them the the ability to sing these songs and

do this music and all of that stuff.

It doesn't have anything to do with that in most cases.

I'm sure there's probably exceptions, but you look at the

lives of most of these people who are singing the CCM songs,

they live wicked lifestyle. They're no different than then

people on tour who are, you know, doing drugs and all of

these other kind of things. And, and, and you think that's

far out. It's not far out.

They do that. That's, that's the lifestyle of

many of these people who are in the contemporary Christian music

bands today. Their lifestyle is wicked,

wicked. And then they're going to get up

and, and, and try to give you this emotional experience where

you are meeting with God. And then they go back to their

camper and smoke their drugs again.

That's, that's, that doesn't have anything to do with being

Spirit filled. And that's why it's so important

then that we as musicians or people who are singing in the

congregation, or people who are playing instruments or whatever

it is, are filled with the Spirit.

Because being filled with the Spirit means not careless and

not foolish, but rather walking in God's will.

Look what He says in verse #15 See then that you walk

circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time,

because the days are evil. Wherefore be you not unwise, but

understanding what the will of the Lord is.

And that's when He moves in to verse #18 And be not drunk with

wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.

And why? Speaking to yourselves in psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in

your heart to the Lord. We get another look into that

idea in Colossians chapter 3. Turn over there with me, if you

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

will. We're talking about this idea

that church music must be sung and played by people who are

filled with God's Spirit, who are indwelt with the Word of

God. And that's what Colossians

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 is talking about. Verse #16 Let the word of Christ

dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing

another. Here again in psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the

Lord. To let the word of Christ dwell

in you richly is another description of the foundation of

a spiritual song service. How you think about the the word

of Christ is to dwell in you. That word you is plural.

It's to dwell in the entire church body, not just in a few

people. Every member is to be filled

with the Spirit and being filled with the Word of God.

That happens when every member is born again.

That's why it's so important, again, as the pastor, for me to

be the gatekeeper and making sure that we are not letting

people into membership who are not saved.

There ought to be a regenerate church membership.

And when you have a church full of people who are not even

saved, you're going to go in the wrong direction.

You're not filled with the Spirit if you're getting up and

singing and you're not even saved.

You're not filled with the Spirit if you're playing an

instrument and you're not even saved, right?

You can't be filled with the Spirit if you don't know Christ

as your Savior. So it's important that you

understand that to be filled with the Spirit, you have to be

a Christian to make that happen. And it's, it's not only left to

the musicians that are in front of the crowd, It's for all of

us. All of us should be filled with

the Spirit as we sing. That word of God is to dwell

richly. It's to fill our minds and our

hearts. The church must be immersed in

the Scripture. That's why I put such an

emphasis on making sure that we are memorizing God's Word.

How else are you going to be filled with the Scripture unless

you are reading it and studying it and memorizing it?

Those are all things that we should be doing collectively so

that when we sing hymns together, we are spirit filled

and it's actually reaching the ears of God.

Every believer is to let the word of God dwell.

It's a choice. Let the word of God, let the

word of Christ dwell in you richly.

We have a choice. We have a choice on whether or

not we're going to do that. I can fill my life with

Scripture. I can read it.

I can learn how to study it and understand it.

I can delight in it. I can meditate on it day and

night. I can test everything by the

word of God. I can exercise my my spiritual

senses as we read about in Hebrews chapter 5, but the word

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

of Christ is to dwell in all believers.

The Bible says in all wisdom, the word of God must produce

spiritual wisdom in the lives of God's people.

It's not an intellectual exercise.

It's not a matter of just just reading and and and learning and

memorizing. The word of God must get down

into every part of our lives and then our lives must be conformed

to the will of God to sing, he says with grace in your hearts

to the Lord. That's a description of born

again people who are engaged with the Lord from the heart.

They're abiding in Christ. They're communing with Christ,

they're walking with him, they're walking in the light

with him. They're the people who are

making changes in their lives when those things are exposed by

the preaching of the word of God.

Listen there there's we, we, we, we have a lot of new Christians

in our church, a lot of, a lot of people who have never really

been discipled in their lives. Lots of, lots of you are in that

category. And you're, you hear a lot of

things from God's word that you've never been taught before.

It is important that you respond to those messages and that you

respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

That's how you're going to be draw closer to him.

That's how you're going to walk in the Spirit.

That's how that's how the Spirit fills you.

You go with the light that you have right?

You might, you might have claimed ignorance before because

I didn't know. I've never heard that before.

But once you've heard it once, you've seen it from the Word of

God, and we don't, I don't get up here and preach a message

unless it's bathed in Scripture. You know that my messages have

just verse after verse after verse because it's not my ideas,

it's God's ideas. And when I show you these things

from the Word of God, your responsibility is to do what the

Word of God says. Not well.

One day I'll make that decision. One day I'll start doing that.

One day I'll stop doing that. Whatever it happens to be, when

you find out what God's Word says, you have the

responsibility to do what God's Word says.

If you want to be spirit filled, you don't have the choice to

decide. I'll do that later.

You need to do it now because He's showing you these things

now and it, and sometimes I know that it that it's a difficult

decision because, well, I've never done that before or I've

always done this fill in the blank, whatever it happens to

be. God speaks to our hearts about

lots of different things. But if you want to be spirit

filled, then you have to do what God says when you find out what

God is saying. And it's the responsibility of

all of us to do that. It's important to make those

changes. Once we're given those changes

from the word of God. There are people who are saved

by grace or walking in grace. Those are the type of people

that sing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

No other kind of people can sing in that way.

I'll be honest with you. That's why you know, people come

in from the outside and they say, wow, something, something

about the service was just different than anything I've

ever experienced before. You know why?

Because the Holy Spirit is here. It's hollow when it's empty,

when you're going to these massive mega churches and all

they're doing is just putting on a performance and the people are

up there, you know, making money and they don't care.

They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't getting paid for

it. They're just doing it because

they're performing, because somebody's giving them money to

do it. It doesn't have anything to do

with, I want to draw these people closer to Christ.

I want to make sure I'm filled with the holy.

You can't tell the difference between most of those people and

any other rock band in the world.

They're in fact, they're doing everything they can to look

exactly like the rock bands in the world because they think

they're cool. And then they come in here and

there's a whole church full of people that are filled with the

Spirit singing hymns that are doctrinal and that are based

directly on the Word of God. And all of our hearts are knit

together because it's the same Holy Spirit inside all of us.

And they come in and they say, wow, something's different about

that place. I'll tell you what it is.

The Holy Spirit is here. And that's why it's important

that we all are filled with the Holy Spirit when we sing,

whether you're up here in front of everybody or whether you're

out there and trying to blend in so nobody can hear you sing

because you don't want anybody to hear you sing.

It's all it's, it's the responsibility of all of us to

make sure that we are filled with the Spirit.

How can you expect the song service and the special music to

be spirit filled if the ones who are playing and singing the

music are not? You can't.

You can't and it's not going to be pleasing to the Lord.

We have to desire to be godly in character since we are

ministering godly music. Our example sings the loudest.

And that's why we have you know, we, we have our our our workers

training once a year. And that's why we have a manual

for what we expect you to do and how we expect you to act and how

we expect you to look when you are up here.

You are an example. You are leading the music when

you're up here singing, you are leading the music and you are

leading all the other spirit filled people in praise of the

Lord. You are an example to your

children. You are an example to all the

rest of the children that are in here.

You are an example to the adults and to the to the visitors that

come in. You are an example of all of

those things. Worldliness cannot be sanitized.

God doesn't just accept whatever people offer.

Do you personally listen to bad music?

It's going to affect you. You listen to the music of the

world. It's just country music.

It ain't going to hurt anything. Yes, they're singing about a

tear in their beer and the one night stand that they had and

this person that they left and that person that they picked up,

and it's going to affect you. Music is not immoral.

Music is very moral one way or the other.

How can we pray for God's blessing and at the same time

shake hands with the world? You can't have God's blessing

and do that at the same time you're attracted to or addicted

to worldliness in music. Those are the things that we

have to consider if we're going to be spirit filled.

So it's very important, and that's why I'm saying these are

foundational things. Church music must be sung and

must be played by spirit filled Saints who are indwelt with

God's Word. Turn back over to Colossians

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. I'm going to give you a third

principle, and this one is very, very important #3 the music must

be sound in doctrine. The music must be sound in

doctrine. Colossians chapter 3, verse 16

Colossians 3:16

that we already read makes that very clear.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom,

teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and

spiritual songs. How do you teach and admonish

and have the word of Christ dwell in you richly and have a

song that is not sound in doctrine?

Right, Which is why it's important that you know what

doctrine is, that you know what the Bible says, that you study

the Word of God to show yourself approved unto God, right?

You need to know what the Bible says so that you can read a song

and read the music to a song or listen to a song being sung and

know if it's doctrinal or not. And there's a lot of songs that

are not doctrinal, especially when you move over into the CCM

side of things. But the words of the songs must

be theologically sound according to the teaching of the Bible.

A great deal of the contemporary Christian music is unacceptable

because it represents charismatic doctrine or or

presents this vague message and it and it lacks that doctrinal

clarity. You know, it's it's called many

times Jim be music. Jesus is my boyfriend, right?

You singing this song and you can't tell if you're singing

about your boyfriend or if you're singing about Jesus,

right, because it's so vague. The music is so vague and the

message of that song is so vague, you can't even tell who

you're talking about, right? But one of the most, I shouldn't

say popular because I don't even really know what's popular, but

I remember when this happened. There's a song called You Light

Up My Life, and I forget. I, you know, I couldn't really

tell you anything else about it. You light up my life, blah,

blah, blah. It was popular in the 90s,

probably. Next thing you know, they're

singing the song in church about Jesus, You Light Up My life.

It was never written to be a song about Jesus.

It was written to be a song about a boyfriend.

But somebody was like, oh, that could apply to Jesus, and they

started singing it. That's not doctrinally sound

music. Oh, it might sound nice.

Oh, you light up my life. It #1 it's so, so, so shallow,

which is what a lot of the songs that are being written today are

so shallow. There's nothing to it.

If you actually start dissecting, it doesn't even say

anything, right? You light up my life.

What does that even mean, right? Not to mention the fact that it

was never written to be about Jesus anyway.

It was written to be about something totally different.

But just because it has a pleasant tune and people like it

does not mean that it's acceptable.

And, and honestly, just because it's in a song book that is good

does not mean it's acceptable. There are some songs that have

been put in song books that that are not acceptable songs, right?

I'll talk some more about that later.

But we want more than just theological soundness.

We want theological depth at the same time we want the richness

of truth. That's going to edify deeply and

it's going to edify broadly. So we don't want only a diet of

what we would call revivalist songs.

Nothing wrong with them, but they were written for mixed

multitude evangelistic outreach services songs, many of them

written by like Ira Sankey for DL Moody's Evangelistic Crusades

and things like that. Nothing undoctrinal about them,

but when all of your music is all of these evangelistic type

songs, it's theologically sound, but there's no theological depth

to them and there's a difference.

Brother Cloud wrote this. Sankey's songs were simple and

direct, appealing to the heart and leading to a decision.

Examples are tell me the old, old story.

There'll be no dark valley. Throw out the lifeline.

Wonderful words of life. I need the every hour, the

cleansing fountain. Faith is the victory.

Trusting Jesus, he says the sword of the Lord's soul.

String songs and hymns is the Sankey revivalist tradition.

They're all good hymns and they have their place, but there was

also a need for hymns of greater spiritual and doctrinal depth to

challenge the people and better educate them and to build them

up to a higher level. And that's where I say there's

there's a difference between theologically sound and

theologically deep. Theologically deep songs bring

us closer to Christ. Right.

Nothing wrong with telling me the old, old story.

It's it's yeah. Tell me that story again.

That's what I got saved on. Right.

Throw out the lifeline. It's great.

It's a great reminder to be a witness for Christ, but it's

not. It's not drawing us deeper into

our relationship with Christ. But you take a song like, oh,

the bitter pain and sorrow that a time could ever be, when I

proudly said to Jesus, all of self and none of thee.

And the song goes on and it's a little of self and a little of

thee, and then it's less of self and more of thee, and then it's

all none of self and all of thee. 4 verses in that song.

Look it up. Oh, the bitter pain and sorrow.

But it's a great song. It's theologically deep.

It moves us to say, wow, I need to have that deeper relationship

with Christ. It's not about me, it's about

him. And I need less of me and more

of him. Those are the songs that drive

at the heart of where we are as Christians.

Right? Throw out the lifeline.

Yeah, I'm already saved. Right?

Tell me the old, old story. It's great.

There's nothing wrong with them. They're doctrinally sound.

But we need some songs that are doctrinally deep to help drive

us deeper in our relationship with Christ.

So the point is that the church's music people have to be

very careful to choose songs with good theological content,

spiritual depth, rather than just those that are shallow or,

or many times just sentimental. We need more spiritual meat.

One of the things that we're going to be doing in the new

year is singing these Psalms. They're very deep theologically

because they're, they come directly from the Psalms.

And, and, and I think it's going to be something that'll help us,

but it comes from the, you know, the Psal trees that Isaac Watts

wrote and Charles Wesley and some of these others.

Those are the 2 popular ones. I say popular, the two that are

the most that, that did the most with it.

I think Charles Spurgeon did some with it as well.

Just just getting to these songs that are theologically deep

because they come directly from God's Word.

And many of the songs that that that speak to us the most or

that mean the most to us or help us the most in our relationship,

there's phrases in there that come directly from God's Word.

And many times we don't even know it until one day we're

reading and we're like, oh, that's where that song came

from. All right.

And that's, that's what makes it theologically sound and

theologically deep. The point here is that every

song must line up with the Word of God if we're going to sing

it. Let me give you a fourth

principle and turn over to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

We already looked at this one, but I want to look at it from

this angle, if you will. The music must emphasize melody.

And this is where we get into a little bit more of the meat of

what music is. And those who sing and those who

play music will understand a little bit more of these kind of

things. But the melody is, is the

simplest part of the music. It's the basic tune, Ephesians

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 and verse #19 says speaking to yourselves, speaking

to yourselves and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

That's the part of the music that can be sung and hummed and

whistled. You know, those are, that's what

you're, that's what you're whistling during the week or

singing during the week. No one ever cared for me like

Jesus, right? All the songs that that, that

just get in your head and stick there.

I wish I had given him more. Those are the songs that are

theologically deep, that drive our relationship with Christ.

By and by, when I look on his face, I wish I had given him

more. That's going to make you make

decisions today that will help change your life, right?

Those. But that's the melody.

And a good melody reinforces the words and helps God's people

remember the words and edify themselves with those words all

throughout the day. By emphasizing the melody, God's

Word is teaching us to keep the music simple so that it doesn't

distract from the message of the words.

There should be a good singable melody and the rest of the music

should not overwhelm that melody.

And, and, and honestly, the music should never be so

complicated or harmonic or loud that it draw drowns out that

simple melody. I remember this and this was

actually a church in this area. Been 10 years ago, probably now,

maybe close to it, but they invited us to come over for a

service that they were doing on it was a different church night,

so different than a church night.

And so I said, all right, you know what, let's go over there.

They invited us, Let's go see. And so we went to, we went to

the service and I mean, for the most part, the, the songs were

fine and everything else. And they sang out of the hymn

book. The choir got up to sing and

they, they used a soundtrack for the choir.

And I get it sometimes, you know, the, the a church doesn't

have the ability to accompany. And so they'll use something

like that. The music on the soundtrack was

so loud that you couldn't even hear the choir singing.

And about halfway through, the drums came in so loud.

Alex was probably 4 years old and he probably doesn't even

remember this. He was sitting there like this.

And I was like, all right, last time we're ever coming to a

service here. But that's what happens.

You can't concentrate on the words of a song when the music

is so loud that that's all you can think about is men.

They need to turn this music down.

It's so loud. I can't hear anything right.

But honestly, that's, that's what most of CCM is, right?

And, and, and, and it's, it's meant to take you on this

emotional journey, right? Every single contemporary

Christian song sounds exactly the same.

Starts off nice and quiet and then it grows and then it builds

and then it builds and then it builds and then it goes back

down to quiet, and then it grows and grows and grows and builds.

And then that, you know, the, the drums are going crazy and

then it goes back down to quiet. And then maybe if, depending on

how long it is, it goes back up there and does the same thing

again and then it goes back down to quiet and it ends.

And usually it ends on a dissonant chord.

There's no resolution in it. And it sounds like there should

be one more note that they play, but they don't actually play

that note. That's one of the that's one of

the ways that you can tell if a song is a contemporary song or

not. It doesn't resolve, the chords

don't resolve, but it's designed to take you on this emotional

journey, right? And honestly, many times that's

what a movie is doing too, right?

There's a little plot at the beginning.

Everything's happening, happening, happening.

And then the climax and then it ends, right?

And they got all the music in the in the middle of it and to

do all the same things to you and everything else.

And sacred music is very different.

It should be a, a simple musical arrangement that's, that's

superior to an overly complicated one.

If, if you have to concentrate so hard on what you're singing

that you can't think about the words, then the music is too

complicated, right? And you're not getting out of

that music what you should be getting out of it because it's,

it's too complicated, right? It should be simple.

It should be easy to hum the tune later on, right?

That's that. Those are principles of music.

The music should emphasize the melody.

Let me give you this number 5 and we'll end with this one

tonight. Music is not neutral.

It is a language. And the message of the music

much must match the message of the lyrics.

I think as we go through this, you'll understand a little bit

more about what I'm talking about, but the foundational

philosophy of CCM, contemporary Christian music, is the idea

that the music is neutral or a moral, and that any style of

music can be used in God's service as long as it's got

Christian words. The music doesn't matter.

The words are what matters. Music is a moral.

Music does not move you in One Direction or another, right?

Music is not godly or ungodly. That's what we mean by, AH,

moral, right? There's a Christian rocker's

creed, and it says this. We hold these truths to be

self-evident. That all music was created

equal, that no instrument or style of music is in itself

evil. That the diversity of musical

expression which flows forth from man is but one evidence of

the boundless creativity of our Heavenly Father.

In other words, what they're saying is it's not the music,

it's the words. So we can rock out to Jesus

loves me if we want to. The music doesn't have anything

to do with that. It's the words, right?

Harold Best, he's he, he wrote a book, but he said this music is

morally relative. It is essentially neutral in its

ability to express belief, creed, moral and ethic,

exactitudes or even worldview. Don Butler, former head of the

Gospel Music Association, said this every style and form of

music can become gospel, whether it's jazz, pop, rock'n'roll or

rap. Rick Warren, that's probably a

name that you'll recognize. He said there's no such thing as

Christian music. They are just Christian lyrics.

But that's why contemporary Christian music is composed of

every music style out there, right?

They have they have head banging Christian music, they have Hard

Rock Christian music, they have pop Christian music, they have

jazz, they have rap Christian music and Christian is used

very, very loosely. That's what they would call it.

But they're saying the music does not matter.

The music is not what makes it Christian or not.

It's the words that make it Christian or not.

And I'll be honest with you, I've been in places before where

Christian music is being played. Christian music is being played,

and you literally have to stop and really concentrate on what's

being said to determine if they're actually playing

something that they're calling Christian or if it's actually

just a pop song that they've found somewhere.

Because you can't tell the difference unless you hear Jesus

in there sometimes. They usually don't say Jesus.

They will say God, or they'll say love, or they'll say, you

know, whatever else. There's other terms that they

use that kind of give you the indication that it's supposed to

be a Christian song. But the concept that music is

neutral is fundamental to contemporary Christian music.

Music is neutral. If you say anything other than

that, the contemporary Christian music does not work.

So as soon as that's accepted, the battle is lost.

It erases all of the boundaries, and the very concept of sacred

music is completely lost. But no one except the defenders

of contemporary Christian music actually believe that music is

immoral. They would say that.

Now, I don't know if they really believe it or not.

They would say that, but they're the only ones who defend that

anyway. If all musical styles are

neutral, then why does a military March never sound like

a romance ballad, right? Why do you not play a military

March to try to put your baby to sleep at night, right?

Why does the military not March to lullabies, right?

If all music is our moral, then it should all do the same thing

for us, right? I mean just something that

simple proves that that that music is not our moral.

The reason that that music is not is that music is not

neutral. Music itself is a language.

Rock and rollers don't believe that music is neutral.

Tons and tons and tons of quotes.

Timothy Leary, 1960s LSD guru, pop culture hero.

He said this. Don't listen to the words.

It's the music that has its own message.

A rock historian by the name of Robert Palmer wrote a book

called The Illustrated History of Rock'n'roll.

He said the transformative power of rock lies in the music

itself. You think about even even movie,

movie text creators, you know, the sound they create these

soundtracks, they don't believe that music is neutral.

You think about, you know, they know the different styles of

music that create different emotional responses, right?

If, if something is supposed to be creepy, the music changes and

it's got a creepy sound to it, right?

If the music, you know, some, some football team finally made

it to the championship and they're about to win and what

the music is behind, it's not some creepy sound in music, is

it? No, it's this big full

orchestration that's meant to make you feel like, yeah, they

just won the game, right? Why is that?

It's because music is not neutral and they know it.

They're not Christians. They know that music is not

neutral. John Debney, he was one of the

top composers of movie music. He said this.

I think music is the voice of the soul, of the emotional

fabric of the film. Orchestra, composers,

conductors, they don't believe that music is neutral.

Every style of music that's played by an orchestra creates

different feelings and thoughts in the people who are listening

to it. Howard Hanson, he's he directed

the prestigious Eastman School of Music for 40 years.

He said this music can be philosophical or orgiastic.

It has powers for evil as well As for good.

Frank Garlock, maybe it's the name you recognize.

He wrote a book called The Language of Music.

He graduated from the Eastman School of Music and was

underneath this guy and, and obviously it had a big impact on

him. But the Christian rockers Creed

that music that that that no music style is evil, denies the

very fact that man is evil and that he can create evil in his

art or in his music. If if there's no if, if music

itself is not evil, then it's taking out the fact that man can

actually be evil. The first musical instruments

were made by the sons of Cain, and they were in open rebellion

to God in their lives. It's ridiculous to think that

they were using those instruments as anything other

than evil, right? The Christian rockers creed that

no music style is evil denies the existence of Satan as the

God of this world. The devil hates God and and he's

attempted to corrupt everything that God has created.

He's called the God of this world in second Corinthians

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4, The spirit that now worketh in the children of

disobedience. That's what that's what he's

called and he's working through them through music, right?

Why is it that that when people are, are, are getting strung out

on drugs and everything else, they're not listening to some

nice little ballad. They're not listening to

Christian hymns. They're rocking out to hardcore

metal music and you know, the head bang and stuff and all of

that. Why is that?

It's because that music is driving them to, it's demonic,

it's devil music, right? Turn over to 1st Corinthians

chapter 14 coming to a close here.

Music is one of the most powerful influences in society.

To think that the devil has not corrupted music for his own

wicked purposes and for sensual enticement of fallen man is

contrary to everything that the Bible teaches.

So the issue then for for a Christ honoring believer is to

find the devil's fingerprints in music and then reject that

music. The Bible is very plain and

teaching us that music is not neutral.

Different styles of music present different messages and

have different emotional effects.

You think about in Exodus when when Moses came down from the

mountain and there's Aaron with the golden calf and all the

people are dancing around naked, right?

What was it that Moses said? There's the sound of war in the

camp. Certainly didn't sound like

music, right? But if it was the same music

that they had played in the Tabernacle and in the temple and

all of the instruments out there and, and singing praise to the

Lord, do you think they would have been dancing around a

golden calf naked? Probably not, right?

It's the music that drove them to those things, because music

is not neutral, no matter how much you want to claim that it

is. The Bible also talks about music

in First Samuel 16 as being a refreshing sound.

There's all kinds of different sounds of music, and depending

on what sound you're listening to, it's going to turn your

spirit one way or the other. Paul teaches that music is a

language in First Corinthians verse, chapter 14 verse #7 and

even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp,

except they give a distinction in the sounds.

How shall it be known what is piped or harp for if the trumpet

give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle?

If the people know that they should be preparing themselves

for battle and the trumpeter blows a tune and it's the wake

up tune, what in the world? What is that, right?

They're not going to go get ready for battle because the

trumpets blowing an uncertain sound, right?

Music is a language and in fact it's one of the most powerful

languages in human society. Music, and I don't know exactly

who it was that called this, called it this, but music has

been called the language of the soul and the language of the

emotions. Turn over to one last passage in

First Thessalonians chapter 5. See.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

So in Christian music, the message of the music must match

the message of the lyrics, and both of them must be spiritual

in their character. That's the very definition of

sacred music or styles of music that preach a message that's

contrary to God's Word. And those are the things that

should be avoided in the service of a holy God.

So we have to exercise discernment if we are going to

be choosing sacred music. Some of the questions that we

have to ask what, what kind of message is this music

presenting? Same thing in the type of in the

music that you're listening to, right?

What it what would what would Christ say if he was sitting

next to me listening to this song about this topic, right?

Does the message of the music fit the message of the lyrics?

We must do exactly what the Bible says.

First Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse #21 prove all things,

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

hold fast that which is good, abstain from all appearance of

evil. So since music is a language,

God's people must be very careful and we must very wisely

test the language of every piece of church music and even use

that to test the music that you listen to in your home, in your

car, wherever you happen to be. What is what is the music that

you listen to say about you? What does it say about your

spirituality? Could somebody listen to the

music that you listen to and say this is a person who is

obviously very close to the Lord?

Or does the music that you listen to say this is a person

who might claim to be a Christian because this is not

horrible music, but they're probably just kind of nominal in

their relationship with the Lord?

What you listen to says a lot about where you're at in your

spiritual life. You want to you want to do a

self evaluation. What are you listening to?

What are you listening to? What is the predominant message

that you are bringing in through music?

You want to determine how spiritual your home is.

What kind of music are you playing in your home throughout

the day? What kind of music is drifting

into yours and your children's ears?

That'll tell you where you're at spiritually, right?

Because music is not immoral. Music is not neutral.

Music is a language, and the language of the music must match

the message of the lyrics. It matters.

You Can't Sing a Christian song to rock music.

Rock music was designed to be wicked, wicked music, and the

people who created it will tell you that in a heartbeat.

It was designed for that. And then we're going to take

that wicked music and put Christian words to it and expect

that God's going to bless it. God can't bless that.

It's not his music. It's the devil's music, right?

The same thing with all of these other pop music, jazz, I mean,

all of those. Anything other than sacred music

has its roots and something that was not based on the word of

God. So where's your music, right?

These are these are these are the basic principles.

We're going to get into some more specific things when we get

back to this, but these are things that you have to

determine before you even start looking for music, right?

Where are you? Where's your base?

Where are you starting at? Where are you?

Where are you coming from with your music?

You have to understand the basic principles of music if you're

going to understand how to choose music that is honoring

and pleasing to the Lord, right? And that's what we, that's what

we want to do in this church. We want our music to be as, as,

as pleasing to the Lord and as edifying to the people who are

listening to it as possible, right?

So we have to have some tests that we put the music to, to

determine whether this is music that is pleasing to the Lord or

not. These are the basics, right?

These are the, these are the foundational principles.

And we'll talk about some more of those as we move forward over

the next few weeks. All right, let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

We thank you for the opportunity that we've had to be here

tonight. Thank you for the fact that your

word is so clear on so many things.

And music is one of those. God, may you help us.

May you help us to play godly music, Christ honoring music in

our homes. May you help us in our church

to, to land on the principles that are going to give us the,

the, the most help through the music services and through the,

through the ministry of music here in this church, God.

And may you use it to help us be what you want us to be.

And may you, may you help us to figure these principles out,

understand these principles so that we can determine for

ourselves what is going to be right and pleasing to you.

And may you help us as a church to always be going up and to the

right. May you help us to be going

forward for the cause of Christ. God, may you help us to get

closer to you in the process. Again, we thank you for all that

you do for us. In Jesus name, Amen.