The Christian Handbook - Worship Through Song, Why Christians Sing

God, we thank you for today. We thank you for your word.

God. We pray that we anything that we have in our minds that might

be distracting us from today, we just set it aside and take a moment

to focus on you and learning from your word today. God, I pray

that every word that I say up here is only the words you want spoken.

God. If there's anything of me that is part of it, God,

get rid of it now. I want those words that fallen deaf hears

only the words that you want spoken today to be spoken. So God,

as we open your word, we pray that it jumps off the page,

it comes alive like it is, and goes directly into our hearts and transforms

us from the inside out. So we're so grateful for this time together,

and pray you are glorified in it and we are edified by it. And

Jesus Name, everybody said, Amen, Okay, give me a break,

give me a break, break me off a piece of that. Nailed it?

How about baa ba two for two? What else I got written down

here? Every kiss begins with man, you guys are doing great? Or

there's here's one you I guarantee unless you're turning thirty seven, this year,

which or this month which I am. You probably won't remember this ones anybody

remember stick Stickley from Nickelodeon, So he had a longer You were used to

be able to write notes to this character on Nickelodeon called stick Stickley. He

was a popsicle stick and I know his address because of this song. Right

to me, Stick Stickley po Box nine six three, New York City,

New York State, one oh one oh eight, Oh, thank you,

thank you. I remember the whole thing, which is kind of embarrassing,

but it just says it was. Why am I singing all these jingles?

Why I just want to hear you guys sing with me? Just kidding,

there's a much deeper reason. It's gonna make a whole lot more sense later

on the message. But people or companies spend millions of dollars writing these silly

little jingles. And why are they writing these jingles? They're trying to sell

something, so they want these jingles get stuck in your head so that you're

thinking about them constantly. Right we're at church, I'm not talking about jingles.

Promise it will make sense. Just hang on to it. The purpose

of them writing these jingles, so they get stuck in our heads, so

we can't stop thinking about them. Music has this way of just connecting our

heads and our emotions together. It just does. They get connected together,

and we start thinking about these things. And just to make the point,

really drive it home. Best part of waking up is what it's folders in

your cup. It's not true. Yeah, that one's a lie. For

those who are wondering, that's not the best part of waking up. They

want you to think it is. But guess what you remembered. The best

part of waking up, it's folders in your cup. Music helps us remember

things. Music helps us feel certain things. We just feel certain things from

music, and I like to talk about this for any of my music nerds

out there. A major chord versus a minor chord. A major chord is

built up of a first, a third, and fifth. You play those

together. I should just call Ryan up here to play the piano for me,

but we're not going to do it. A first, a third,

and a fifth. You feel certain way when you hear that chord. But

if you take that third, that third note, and you just move it

down one semi tone, it completely changed. It changed from a major to

a minor chord, completely changing the emotion that's pulled out of you from what

you hear. It's not happy, it's like whatever other synonyms for happy you

are. It's sad. It's a little bit depressing. Right is he's laughing

at me because I forgot how to say words. It's okay. It goes

from happy to sad. You feel something different between a major and a minor

chord. But music and singing have an even deeper significance for those who follow

Jesus. There's something much bigger at play. So today what we're talking about

is this and this is the message title no skip out one. There we

go. Worship through song? Why Christians sing? Worship through song? Why

Christian sings? Everybody knows Christians sing, but why That's something we don't always

talk about. Right and sorry, Patrician, I'm totally doing things out of

order, so thanks for keeping up with me. Why do Christians sing?

It's something that we all just know that people who follow the Lord sing?

But why do they sing? And so we've been in a series. Now

you can go back to the slide the Christian Handbook Fundamentals of the Christian faith.

So we're talking about is what do Christians believe and what do Christians do?

Because we know that belief drives action and behavior. Right, there's certain

things that we believe that not certain things. Everything we believe affects what we

do. And I like the example of the chair. You're all sitting in

that chair because you believe you it will hold your weight, because you wouldn't

have saddened if you thought it was gonna break when you sat down. You

believe the chair will hold you, therefore you sit in it. Okay,

Our beliefs as Christians affect our behaviors or our actions. And that's what this

whole entire series is about about. And we've been under this sub topic of

worship, the subtopic of worship. And traditionally, when we hear the word

worship as Christians, what do you guys think? Yeah, we think about

singing at the beginning of service. We think about these songs we literally just

got done singing. That's worship, right, we call that worship That actually

isn't a complete view of what the word worship really is. Worship truly is

something much much more than that worship is. And this is kind of my

words, but it's a recognition. This is my words mixed with definitions,

so I can't take full credit of it. But worship is a recognition of

the rank or status as someone or something else compared to me. It's that

recognition of this status or rank. So what does that mean? Worship is

to pay homage to one greater than yourself, or to show reverence to worship

someone. Is where we get such acts as kissing of the hand, right

That's why I kissed my wife's hand, not because I'm worshipping her, But

that's where we get such acts as that kneeling to kneel before someone, or

even more so, to lay to lay prostrate before someone can be really careful,

not forget the second R on that word, to lay down fully on

your face before someone. That's where these things come from. Those who caught

that joke is you, I come to breathe right on by that one.

It's a recognition of our own station in comparison to someone of a higher station.

Okay, And as that relates to God, our worship is us knowing

who He is and who we are in relation to him. That's where this

comes into For the believer writes a little bit different. It has a deeper

significance. But true worship is taking it a step further than that. It's

not just knowing who it is that you worship, but it's showing it.

Okay, it's this aspect of showing it. And I loved last week Pastor

Jordan had a quote and I want to look at it again. I'm pretty

sure having on here yet. Worship is a posture of obedience of heart,

mind, and body. Worship is a posture of obedience of heart, mind

and body. I was gonna call him out in here, but he's actually

in the kids ministry serving today, which is amazing. So way to go,

Jordan. But I was gonna say, man, do you feel weird

someone quoting you? Because I feel terrified when someone quotes me. Mike,

please aim much higher than myself for your quotes. But I love this quote

because worship is a postura of obedience of heart, mind, and body.

True worship encompasses every aspect of our being, every part of our being.

It's all pieces of us that everything falls into alignment with what we worship.

That includes our emotions, our thoughts, and our actions. And one of

the ways we show this alignment of our hearts, of our emotions, thoughts,

and actions, or our hearts. One of the ways we show this

alignment, or show that we worship something is that we praise it with our

mouths. It's the things we speak and say about it. This is one

of the ways we show what we worship because we praise it. And the

singing that we do at the beginning of service, which we all love and

enjoy, is just a piece of the worship puzzle or the piece of the

worship pie. I don't I actually like pie. Hopefully you guys like it

more than I do. It's just a piece of it. Though. It's

one of the ways we worship the Lord that we lift up our voice and

we sing his praises. The definition of praise I have it here, I

looked it up is to express warm approval or admiration of That's what it means

to praise, To express warm approval or admiration of. We sing the warm

approval or we sing the adoration of God out loud. That's what we do

when we're praising the Lord, when we're worshiping him through song. So that's

the crux and what we're going to focus on today's We're gonna focus on this

definition here. We're going to talk about why we as Christians worship the Lord

through song? Why do Christians sing the praises of God? Are you guys

ready for this? I think this is the first message that I've ever preached

that will have five points, five points. It's gonna be great. They're

not super long, so it's okay. Five moin paints, five main points.

Are they all the points on why one of the ways Christians worship through

song? Probably not. This is not an exhaustive list. This is just

five things that are very important and big reasons why So, why do Christians

worship God throughs song? Reason number one? Let's just start with the first

one. God's people are commanded to worship Him through song. It seems like

a big one. God's people are commanded to worship Him through song. And

it's a pretty common theme to see all throughout the Bible as you're reading through

the different stories that God's people naturally just want to proclaim the goodness of God

out loud. They just want to It's amazing, it's a natural thing we

do. I mean, how many when you're reading through it. How many

times that after God did something incredible, his people just broke out into song

about how awesome he is. You keep reading through them, you're gonna read.

I mean, the one that's coming to mind right now is Mary's song.

Right when she's told she's going to be birth the Lord, she breaks

out into song. Right she meets with who's her sister in law? Who's

got Elizabeth? Thank you, Elizabeth pregnant with the John the baptize her.

Another song for zach ries things one right before that. There's all these songs

like that's just what the people of God do. They break out in a

song when he does something awesome. It's a fairly natural thing for God's people

to sing his praises. And but just because it's a natural thing doesn't mean

that it will always happen. That's why I think God has the command of

us. Right, so we also see that we're told to do it in

scriptures and in scripture, and I want to look at Ephesians chapter five as

one of these places do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.

Pause. This is a verse eighteen starts, And so I feel like

I need to address it. Don't get drunk, pretty straightforward, drinking is

okay. Don't get drunk right? Why because it leads to debauchery, which

is sinful living, and it goes much deeper than that. Instead, what

are we supposed to be filled with the spirit? Right? Speaking to one

another with psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit. Sing and make music

from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for

everything, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Can we go

back to verse nineteen, let's look at with Verse nineteen says a little more

specifically, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit,

sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. So we see

here we're being told to sing and make music from our hearts to the Lord,

to let the overfly. I say this way, to let the overflow

of the affections we have for God pour out in our singing. To let

the affections or the love that we have, the adoration for the Lord that's

in us overflow and pour out into singing and making music. But it isn't

just any kind of singing, right, because it says something specific in verse

twenty, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, the name of

our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go back one side. We're gonna focus on

this last part, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything. That

is a continuation of verse nineteen, and it's maybe quantifying is not the right

word, but it's defining how we should be making music from our hearts to

Lord, always giving thanks to Him. We sing songs and make music to

the Lord. And I love this because I say we're creative with our expression,

because the creator of creativity lives in us, like the one who created

creativity lives in us and gave his ability to be creative and express our love

and adoration of Him. And that includes in our making music and singing the

songs and all of this thanking God for everything. All of it's done in

Jesus name. Because we know that Scripture says that all of the promises of

God find their yes and amen, and who Jesus. All of the promises

of God are yes and amen, and Jesus he is the fulfillment of all

the promises of God. He is Jesus is because he's God in the flesh,

and it is in Jesus name, that we express our thankfulness to God

through music and singing. And I want to look at one more place in

scripture under this first main point, and that is Psalm forty seven. Clap

your hands, all your nations, shout to God with cries of joy.

For the Lord most High is awesome. Okay, I was gonna I'm gonna

pause here. This is just confusing to me. Awesome and awful? Why

are those words backwards? This is not a deep point. This is a

very shallow point that I mean, it's not even a point. I'm just

saying. I think it's weird that something should be full of awe, should

be awesome, something is some awe should be less right. Don't that sing

backwards? That's my problem with the English language. For the Lord most High

is awesome, the great king over all the earth. He subdued nations under

us, people's under our feet. He shows our inheritance for us. The

pride of Jacob, whom he loved. God has ascended amid shouts of joy

the Lord, amid the sounds of a sounding of trumpets. Sing praises to

God, Sing praises, Sing praises to our King. Sing praises for God

is the King of all the earth. Sing to him a psalm of praise.

God reigns over the nations. God is seated on his holy throne.

The nobles of the nation's assembled as the people of the God of Abraham.

For kings of the earth, For the kings of the earth belong to God.

He is greatly exalted. Man. If you everyone be pumped up about

God, read some of the psalms. You'll see some of the deepest depths

of despair, followed by the highest levels of encouragement about who God is and

him following through and coming through from people to mazing. But God is King

of all, King of all. Everything is under his authority. Every king

on this earth is subject to the King of Kings. That means that everyone,

from the greatest to the smallest will all do it. Verses six and

seven say, can we go back to six and seven. From the greatest

to the smallest, will all sing praises to God, sing pray, sing

praises to our King, Sing praises for God is the King of all the

earth. Sing to him a psalm of praise. Everyone will that's what we're

commanded to do for the King of all the earth. We sing a psalm

of praise to him. So why do we sing praise of God through song?

Everyone say, because he commanded us to nailed it ready for number two?

Okay, why do Christians worship through song? Here's number two? Singing

teaches us and reminds us of God's truth. Singing teaches us and reminds us

of God's truth. Melodies just help us remember things better. They just do.

And so if I want to teach my kids something and I want them

to remember it, why not put a song to it. Jesse did a

very great job of this during our summer. She always teaches the boy stuff

because she's a teacher. But she taught the boys and my phone number and

our address if they ever needed, if they got lost somewherees they whatever,

And so she came up with a melody fart, I'm not going to sing

my whole phone number, just say you know, and my address. But

it was like three six zero, And guess what, the boys know my

phone number because of that little song she made up and our address. I

can't remember the dress song because I don't it's too long. But she didn't

also teach me she taught the boys. But they both know my phone number.

In case of an emergency, they can sing that song to somebody and

they'll be able to call me. And they know our address so they could

make their way home somehow. It's bananas why because music helps us remember things.

Melodies help us remember things. And and this kind of also goes back

to what I was talking about at the beginning, with all those jingles,

who's the good neighbor? Like a good neighbor? State farm is there?

I don't want to grow up because I'm a Toys r US kid. You

remember that who's on your side? Nationwide's on your side? None of this

is sponsored, by the way. There's so many more examples, like we

just remember all this stuff. Or my favorite thing is I know the phone

number for Kiel Mortgage seven seven eight K, and I in an E know

this stuff works. Guys, these silly songs and melodies, they just get

into our brains so we can remember stuff. And I think that the world

uses something God created for their own selfish purposes. Right, So there's a

proper way that God designed everything to work, and sometimes we just think right

past it. And one of these things is to help us remember things that

we're not like the world. Where the people of God differ from these companies

and these jingles is we have a much deeper meaning. The people of God

use music, melodies and not only to help us remember things, but we

also teach through it is to help us teach things. We can learn proper

theology through songs. Through the songs that we sing, and when they get

stuck in our head, what's being repeated in our head the truth of who

God is and what He's done. That's amazing. That's what's getting stuck in

our head. So what I want to do is I want to look at

some of the lyrics for a few of the songs that we sing, and

we're just gonna look at them and kind of consider what they're teaching us.

Made alive by citizens all, this is the first verse. I once was

dead in sin, alone and hopeless, a child of wrath. I walked

condemned in darkness. That's who I was. But your mercy brought new life,

and in you love and kindness raised me up with Christ and made me

righteous. Now what is that song teaching us? It's the Gospel. That's

exactly what that song is. Teaching us. So when we're singing this,

what are you singing? Okay? God, I remember who I was and

I the example I love is when you're driving down the road, do you

drive staring at the rear of view mirror. No, that would be absurd

because you're gonna crash, right, But the rear view mirror has a purpose.

The rear view mirror is to show you wh what's behind you and where

you've come from. We need our rear view mirror moments. We need to

remember where we came from. But you have to look to the windshield so

you don't crash when you're driving. You need to know where God's taking you.

But your mercy brought new life and in you love and kind In your

love and kindness raised me up with Christ and made me righteous. That's an

amen moment. And then it goes right into the course you have bought me

back with the riches of your amazing grace and relentless love. I made alive

forever with you, life forever by your grace. I'm saved by your grace.

I'm saved. That's a mic drop. I don't want to buy a

new one. Okay, what's the next song. Next song is Grace Alone.

You left your home to seek out the lost. You knew the great

and terrible cost, But Jesus, your face was set. I worked my

fingers down to the bone. Nothing I did could ever atone. But Jesus,

you paid my debt. Hold here, go back? So what is

this saying to us? What is this teaching us? When we sing these

words? We're talking about this great and terrible cost that Jesus knew was coming

ahead, and he's still his face was set because scripture tells us that for

the joy set before him, he endured the cross. So that's what we're

being reminded in this first half of this verse, and then comes down to

us and what we tried no go backtris are you doing awesome? I worked

my fingers down to the bone. I mean I tried to do this in

my strength. Nothing I did could ever atone. Why Because there's nothing you

can do to save yourself. That's what the songs telling us, and that's

true and consistent with scripture. But Jesus, you paid my debt. He's

the one who can. Okay, now we can go to the next slide.

By your blood, I have redemption. And salvation. Lord, you

died that I might reap what you have sown. That line gets me every

time you died that I might reap what you have sown. Not what have

I sown? What's my life sown? A lifelong of sins, storing up

wrath for judgment. But I reap what Christ Is sown. And you raise

and you rose, then I might be a new creation. This is our

proof of the Like him, raising is saying everything I said would happen,

It's going to happen. And here's how I prove it to you. I

just rose from the dead. That's Jesus rose that I might be a new

creation. I am born again by what grace and grace alone. Why because

we can't work our fingers to the bone to get there. I think that's

it for that song. Right, there's one more. Let's look at this

last one. This one's a little bit quicker and easier. I think anyone

loved hims out there. I didn't grow out singing him. So when I

discover them when I'm older, they're incredible. What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh precious is the flow that makes me

white as snow, No other founts. I know nothing but the blood of

Jesus. For my pardon, right, pardon is being forgiven. Right this,

I see what nothing but the blood of Jesus. We're doing this colin

response style. Guys, this is going great for my cleansing. This My

plea was that it for that one. Okay, I didn't repeat the course

because I didn't want you to take forever. Oh precious is the flow that

makes me white as snow. No other founts. I know nothing but the

blood of Jesus. But my point in all of this is, we're teaching

theology. We're teaching who Jesus is and who we are in relation to him.

And we're doing it to song and melody. Why so we can remember

it, so we can remember it, and so we can teach it.

They're teaching these lyrics, are teaching us about God's truth. They're quoting scripture,

teaching theology, reminding us, reminding the believers who are singing it,

the goodness of God and what he has done. And the hope is that

they get stuck in our heads because they're set to melodies. The Bible tells

us to set our minds on things above, right, to set our minds

on the things that are eternal, not temporal. Eternal means forever, temporal

means temporary. Right to set our minds on the things that are forever.

And songs about the goodness of God are a great way to keep our minds

on things above, to keep our minds on heavenly things. They put our

minds. There is there anything wrong with listening to not praise and worship music.

No, But if our diet is only that, what are we filling

our heads with? This is a great way to make sure that our minds

are set on the things of God all the time, to help remind us

of the goodness of who He is, and to continue to teach us theology.

And just to put a whole nice little bow on this point, I

want to look at Colossian's three verses sixteen and seventeen. Let the message of

Christ dwell among you richly. First off, the message of Christ is what,

it's a gospel, the message about Christ. Let it dwell among us.

Let's live among us, but not just live among us in any way

richly that means in abundance. Let the Gospel live among us with abundance as

you what teach and admonish and monish just means warned someone of impending danger,

right, or warn them that they're doing something not good. To teach and

monish one another with all wisdom through okay? So this word through is important.

How are we going to teach and andish one another with all wisdom through

psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit. Singing to God with gratitude in

your hearts. Okay, So we're teaching it and monishing through the things we

sing, and not only that, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

So our singing of thanksgiving to God has a benefit to each other.

This is a beautiful picture of the times where we're like when we say do

things for God's glory and the body's benefit. This is a beautiful picture of

that working together. That it's us raising our voices and thanksgiving to God that

we benefit one another because we're learning and teaching at the same time as saying

thank you to God. It's amazing to see that. And whatever you do,

whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of Lord

Jesus, the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That's amazing to me that it all just works that way, that we teach

and and monish each other through psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit,

songs that teach us. So why do we sing praise to God through song?

Say? Because he commanded us to now say, to teach and remind

us of God's truths Amen number three. Singing focuses our hearts and minds on

Jesus. Obviously, singing in general doesn't, but singing to him does.

Right. Singing focuses our hearts and our minds on Jesus. And this is

where we get to talk about that emotional side or the emotional connection of music.

Music moves us at human as humans, It just does. It moves

us. We can't help but feel things when we hear music like that when

I was talking about the major minor. You feel certain ways. But if

you still don't believe me, what I want you to do is tonight,

when you go home, everyone's got cabled or streaming services. Right, pick

the scariest movie you can think of, Sit down, turn off all the

lights hit play and then turn the volume off. That is not a scary

movie. If you can't hear anything, nothing's scary about that. Put on

the shining not scary. Two kids on a track. What does this mean

down the hallway? It's the music behind that single violin notes like and you're

like, oh, it's so unnerving. I don't like this at all.

The music is what's connecting and making that terrifying. It connects to us,

it pulls emotions out of us. So you should try that sometime. Not

encouraging you to watch scary movies or whatever, but they're not scary if you

hit mute, they're just not scary. But God did design music to interact

with our emotions and our feelings in a beautiful way when it's used for His

purposes. And do you guys know what our creative arts team target is?

Well, firstly I should probably explain the team target is we have a mission

as the roots. It's all about Jesus. We love God, we love

people, we reach the lost, and we make disciples. That's our mission.

Right. So, and I connected with all of our ministry heads.

I was like, okay, we have a mission as a church. We

probably shouldn't have separate missions for the ministry teams because that causes mission drift and

gets people a little squirrely. So we came up with was this idea of

team targets. A team targets if you have the big mission of the church,

we put our team target, which is somewhere inside that mission. And

if we hit a bullseye on the team target, we're right on mission as

a church for what God called us to do, right well the mission.

The excuse me. The team target of the Creative Arts Team is I love

that I'm pointing at Duncan. He's like, I a thousand percent did not

mean to call you out, but it's right here if you want to read

it. To create excellent worship experiences that prepare our hearts to receive from God.

To create excellent worship experiences that prepare our hearts to receive from God the

end. The whole goal of the Creative Arts Team is to help edify the

body. And whenever we say like edified just needs a lift up to build

up to help right, it's Their whole goal is to edify the body by

helping get our hearts ready to receive from God's word. That's amazing. Amen.

Indeed, what a benefit that is for us as a church body,

that there's a whole group of people that want to serve the body by helping

us get our hearts and our minds set on God so that we can receive

from His word. That's amazing that we would look at music and how God

created to work and interact with us and say, you know what we want

to do, what God help, Let's redeem that for the Lord's sake.

So publicly, thank you Worship team because they're creative arts team, because that's

amazing. Thank you for blessing the body like that. So we have music

that helps us connect to our motions, and then we have lyrics that will

help or lyrics or words that will help connect to our minds. But the

goal is always to have both of them in alignment with the Lord. So

what does Jesus say about the kinds of worshippers that the Father is seeking.

Let's look in John four, twenty three and twenty four. Yet a time

is coming, and now yet a time is coming and has now come when

the true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit and in truth, For

they are the kinds of worshippers. The Father seeks God is spirit, and

his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth. No, we're not

going to read that one yet. That was enough. But the context of

this verse in John four is when Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman at

the will and she is talking about in short, I'm gonna really summarize this,

she's talking about where you worship the Father, and Jesus is correcting her

and telling her it's not about where you worship the Father, but it's how

you worship the Father. The God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship

him in spirit or according to the beard of God. But also not just

in that regard, but also our worship should be spirited or from the deepest

parts of us. It should be with a lot of emotion behind it,

with all, I would say, with all of our emotions engaged or involved.

And just like we are commanded to love the Lord with what with all

of our heart, mind, soul and strength. Right when we sing praises

to him, we should have our whole heart engaged, which is hilarious because

I didn't plan that. But the last song we just sang was called whole

heart. It's funny because God knows what he's doing. We should have our

whole heart engaged. And Jesus had some strong words for those whose hearts were

not engaged. And this is when we're gonna go to that Matthew text.

You hypocrites. That would hurt, that would sting a little bit for Jesus.

Just straight up, you hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about

you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far

from me. They worship me in vain. Their teachings are merely human rules.

That's some strong words from Jesus. Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for only focusing

on the external versus the internal. So what did the because they were only

concerned about what they looked like to other people. It wasn't about their actual

clean motives or how their relationship was with the Lord. No, it was

how do I look to other people? So, in contrast to the way

the Pharisees did, that we have to have when we sing praises the Lord,

we have to have our whole heart engaged in it, not our hearts

far from him, but our heart's close to him. So when Jesus tells

us to worship the Lord and Spirit, part of that is from the deepest

part of what he means is from the deepest parts of us. But what

else did he say? So let's go back to that John text and read

it one more time. Yet a time is coming and has now come when

the true worshipers will worship the Father in the spirit and in truth. Okay,

so this is that other peace, spirit and in truth. It's not

just with our spirits or our emotions and our heart, but it's also truth.

We have to have an engaged mind. Our minds should be engaged when

we worship. We don't just sing praises to Jesus mindlessly, because we're not

just kind of I call it mindless recitation. We're not just reciting things that

have no meaning. Our brains needed. They can't be an autopilot. We

can just let them go and see what happens. Now, we need to

know the truth about who it is that we're worshiping and who it is we're

praising. And we also need to be aware of what we're proclaiming with our

mouth because words mean things. They mean things when we say them, so

we should understand what it is that we're proclaiming with our mouths. In order

to understand what you're proclaiming, you have to have your minds engaged. We

have to have our minds engaged in this worship or this praise. This is

what happens when we sing at the gathering, when we sing at the beginning

of our services, this is what we're doing. We're aligning our hearts and

aligning our minds to focus on jess Amen. Okay, guys, ready for

number four. We're cruising. Wait before we say that, let's repeat all

of the first three. First, all right, why do we sing praises

to God through song? Because he commanded us to say it. That was

really demanding of me. Thank you for repeating number two to teach and remind

us of God's truths. Number three to focus our hearts and minds on Jesus.

And number four we sing to express our thanksgiving and adoration to God and

to proclaim His goodness to each other. I can't wait to have you guys

repeat this one. I'm letting you know ahead of time. I split it

in half when we repeat it because I can't memorize of either. But we

were designed to give praise. We just praise things. Go to a sports

game and watch the fans what happens. Jumping to their feet, raising their

hands, screaming, cheering, clapping when their team scores a touchdown or a

goal touchdown. I watch football, obviously that's what they do. We were

designed by God to praise. And in fact, it wasn't just us that

was designed by God to praise. It's all of creation that was designed to

praise. And there's two places in scripture I want to go to see this,

and the first one is in Psalm nineteen. The heavens declare the glory

of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day,

they pour forth speech, night after night. They reveal knowledge. They

have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them,

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the

ends of the world. And this kind of goes on to the next part,

so well, we'll stop there. The words to the ends of the

world. Even the skies above proclaim the glory of God. You just look

up and they're singing, And I love how it says they're singing without they

don't have voices, but with their voice they're proclaiming. It's amazing to think,

like, even when you just look around, how can you not be

in awe of God? If you just look around at the world, it's

incredible what he has done. Oh and by the way, he spoke it

into existence. Let there be light. Bang there was light there, big

bang theory. He spoke it all into existence and it all works together perfectly.

It's incredible. Look at a sunrise. What he didn't have to make

it pretty and he did. It's amazing what he did. And you just

look around at the world and see how all the things that he created give

him praise in just their existence. Creation itself should drive us to praise him.

But it's even deeper than that. All of creation was created by God

to bring him glory. All of creation was made to praise him. I

want to look at Luke nineteen. This one's cool. I mean, it's

all cool, but this one's also cool. When he came near the place

where the road goes down to the Mount of Olive's triumphant entry, the whole

crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God. In loud voices for all the

miracles they had seen. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of

the Lord, Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Some of the

Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, rebuke your disciples. And

this is Jesus response. I tell you, He replied, if they keep

quiet, the stones will cry out. The stones will cry out. Jesus

says, if I tell my disciples to be quiet, the rocks are going

to start praising me. Why because all of creation was made to bring him

glory into raise him. Every bit of his creation brings him praise, and

that is designed to bring him praise. And that includes us as humans.

We were designed as beings who praise, and unfortunately, oftentimes we point that

praise somewhere else. It gets misdirected or pointed in the wrong direction. But

the facts still remains that we are appraising people. And there's a book called

Desiring God by John Piper that I highly recommend everyone read. But he has

a really great point about joy in there. He might have stolen this idea

from CS. Lewis because I was reading some other stuff. But regardless,

as an awesome thought. So it goes something like this, Our joy isn't

complete until it's been expressed John Piper, maybe C. S. Lewis,

probably Michael Scott for all my office fans out there like that. That's great.

Our joy isn't complete until it's been expressed. Okay, well what does

that mean? That means our joy in something isn't made complete until we've expressed

praise about how much we enjoyed it. We have this need to tell people

about the awesome things we experience, this weird insatiable desire. And if you

don't believe me, think about your favorite movie or if you just went to

an awesome like Mew. Like, if you talk to me about steaks,

I'm always going to mention the table and Tacoma because that's the best stake I've

ever had in my life. We have this desire in us to talk about

and praise the things we enjoyed, because that is the consummation of our joy,

the expression of it right right, we express our love of something.

We have this weird need to tell everybody. It's this thing where people are

like, okay, just shut up about it. I started watching some masterclasses

and I'm like learning so much, and I'm like, Jesse, these are

amazing. Look at this, and she's like, yeah, yeah, this

is super boring because you're a nerd, which is true, but I have

this weird desire to be like, I'm learning so much and it's so awesome

and I have to tell you about it because I enjoy it. Because that's

our expression, is what completes the joy that we have within us. And

to put it in Bible terms, I had to give it praise. That's

that expression of the joys. To give it praise with my mouth. I

wanted to share with everyone how amazing it was. That's why you took a

picture of that meal and posted on the Instagram, because you had to tell

the world how amazing this meal was. But a believers, we know the

praise doesn't terminate on the steak, right. Our praise terminates on the one

who made the cow that became the steak, and the one who created the

chef who knew how to cook it, because I don't know how to cook

it. The praise terminates on the Lord, because he created all these good

things. That's where true praise should terminate, or that's where praise should be

directed. And I said, all this just to prove that we were designed

by God to praise. So let's get back to that main point. Can

we put point four back up there? That we sing to express our thanksgiving

and adoration to God and to proclaim his goodness to each other. That's one

of the reasons we sing songs to worship God, to show him our thanksgiving

and our adoration, that we are expressing our joy and great gratefulness to Him

by lifting our voices and telling him. We're showing how much adoration we have

for Him by the songs we sing. And now this second part, which

I guess we could call like four B because this has coming two points,

and to proclaim his goodness to each other, right, I think there's something

to be said. I put him together because I really like these two together.

But there's something to be said about our expressing and thanksgiving to Him as

a way to proclaim God's goodness to each other. And I think, yeah,

I'm gonna skip this part. I want to go to first Chronicle sixteen,

and this is right after David brought the Ark of the Covenant back to

Jerusalem. So we're gonna read a few verses here and the we're gonna skip

a little in the middle and read the end of it. That day David

first appointed Astath and his associates to give praise to the Lord in this manner.

So he's like, this is how you're going to give praise to the

Lord. Well, the first step is give praise to the Lord. I

thought that was pretty straight for it. I like it. Proclaim his name,

make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him.

Okay, we're going to make known among the nations what he has done by

singing to him. Sing to him, Sing praise to him. Tell of

all his wonderful acts, Glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of

those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength,

seek his face. Always remember the wonders he has done, his miracles,

and the judgments he pronounced. You his servants, the descendants of Israel,

his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. He is the Lord, our

God. His judgments are in all the earth. And then it goes into

some very specific Children of God moments that we don't have time to cover today.

So we're going to skip down to verse thirty six, which is the

end of this discourse. I guess Praise be to the Lord, the God

of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Then all the people said, what

Amen and praise the Lord. That's the response, right. One of the

reasons we praise God through songs is to remind each other of all of what

God has done to remind us of his goodness. And the result of us

singing to the Lord and reminding each other is that all of us say Amen

and praise the Lord, that it grows our affections for him. We remind

each other what this is that we're doing here and who God is and who

we are are in relation to him. So I love the lyrics that we

just read just a minute ago. Look it in the rear view mirror.

I'm remind we're reminding each other. Where have we come from? Where has

the Lord brought us? Now? Who are we now that we are in

him? It's amazing. Kind of the band come up or whoever's gonna come

play? Please and thank you? Okay? So why do we sing praises

to God throughs song? Everyone say, because he commanded us to to teach

and remind us of God's truths, to focus our hearts and minds on Jesus

and then the big one. We're going to split it in a half to

express thanksgiving and adoration to God, and then the other half and to proclaim

His goodness to each other. Okay, us move on to the last one.

Number five. We sing songs of praise to God because he is worthy.

Because he is worthy, I'm gonna save the best for last kind of

person. This is the best one. We sing songs of praise to God

because he is worthy. And if you do a quick search for all the

verses that talk about how the Lord is worthy of all the praise, you

will come up with a ton of verses. Why Because He absolutely and undeniably

is worthy of all the praise. Because it's true, he is worthy of

not just all our praise, but all praise that ever existed, for all

of eternity. It's not just us. How much is he worthy? All

of it? All praise from all, from all of history. And for

this point, I'm just gonna let God speak from self, and we're just

gonna read Psalm ninety six because I think he could probably say it better than

me. Sing to the Lord, a new sing to the Lord, all

the earth. Sing to the Lord, Praise his name, Proclaim his salvation

day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among

all peoples. For great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise.

He is to be feared above all gods. Why, for all gods of

the nations are idols. Nothing but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and

majesty are before him. Strength and glory are his sanctuary. Man, that's

a power. Move right there. Ascribe to the Lord, all you,

families of nations. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the

Lord the glory. Do his name. It's do his name. Bring an

offering, and come into his courts, which I love because Pastor Jordan talked

about it last week. Romans twelve one. In view of God's mercy,

offer your boys as living sacrifices. That's your proper, true, and proper

worship. Or some translations say reasonable. It's only reasonable to live your life.

To give your life or offer your life is a living sacrifice if you

fully understand his mercy. So we should study his mercy. If it doesn't

make sense to us, because in view of that mercy, it's easy to

bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor

of his holiness. Tremble before him all the earth. And this fear is

like a reverence thing. It's like you stand on the edge of the Grand

canyon and look down. That's beautiful, but you it also could kill you.

Like we understand the majesty of who the Lord, tremble before him all

the earth, say among the nations, the Lord reigns. The world is

firmly established, it cannot be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.

Let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be glad, Let the see

resound and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant. I

don't even know what that means, and everything in them. Let all the

trees of the forest sing for joy. Let all creation rejoice before the Lord,

for he comes. He comes to judge the earth. He will judge

the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. Why do we just

read all of that? Because God is most worthy to be praised. The

glory do his name. He's deserving of every bit of praise that has ever

existed, And he's deserving for the sheer fact alone. He sent Jesus to

restore a relationship to himself, the creator, the one owed nothing or we're

owed nothing, the one who has owed everything. He came down and fixed

that problem. That's amazing. And Duncan and I were just talking about this

earlier this past week. There's a hymn called before the Throne of God Above.

Those who are familiar with it, they're like, yeah, and I

want to read how beautiful, How beautiful it's put in the second verse.

When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within. Upward,

I look and see him there, who made an end to all my

sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is kind of free

for God, the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me,

To look on him and pardon me. That's incredible. When you stop and

think about what that really means, it's hard not to feel that cut you

your soul, real teeth. God would come to earth as the man Jesus

fully god fully man, and take the full punishment of sin for me,

the full punishment of sin. He is most worthy of all praise, and

then when you stack on all the other amazing things he's done all throughout history,

that just raises the bar. That's why we sing to him, because

he's worthy of our voices being lifted to sing his praises. So why do

we sing songs of praise to God? Everyone say, because he commanded us

too to teach and remind us of God's truths, to focus our hearts and

minds on Jesus, to express thanksgiving and adoration to God, and to proclaim

his goodness to each other. And because he is worthy, that is why

we sing songs of praise to God. What do we do with this information?

What do we do? Knowing why we do something like we talked before,

should affect what we do, and will what you believe will affect your

behaviors. So in light of why we sing, because we just talked through

all those reasons, this is why I think we should do. Sing praises

to the Lord with your whole heart and mind. We probably could have guessed

that that's what it was going to be, to sing praises to the Lord

with your whole heart and your whole mind. When we sing praises to the

Lord, whether we're here together as a church doing it, or you're in

your car and you just got the music going and singing. We should do

it with our whole heart and mind, with everything we've got, With everything

we've got, we used to remember who it is that we're singing to.

We're singing to our Lord, our key, our Savior. That's who we're

singing to, the one who is worthy of all praise. And guess what,

You're literally going to get an opportunity to try it out here in just

a second, because we're gonna sing a song. We're going to spend a

little bit more time singing to the Lord. But what does it look like

to praise the Lord with my whole heart and whole mind. Let's look at

the whole heart first. Maybe for you it's raising your hands. Maybe it's

jumping up and down clapping. Maybe it's dancing in the back your whole heart.

Maybe it's singing at the top of your lungs. Why do you think

we like the music loud? So if you are completely tone deaf and can't

say on pitch, you can still sing loud. It's no big deal.

We don't want you to feel any kind of way about not being able to

raise your voice to the Lord and fully praise Him with all of the deepest

parts of you and be embarrassed or ashamed. You shouldn't be embarrassed or ashamed

anyway. Even if can't sing on key. The Lord doesn't care if you

can sing on key anyway. He just wants your whole heart in that worship.

He cares more about how you're worshiping him. Some of you may quietly

bow your head and sing from the deepest parts of your being, an introspective,

deep part of your being, and that's praising the Lord with your whole

heart, still lifting your voice in thanksgiving and praise to Him. What I

don't want you to do is look around at everybody else and think I need

to look like them. That's true worship to the Lord. That's worshiping with

your whole heart. Don't compare yourself to anybody else. I don't think the

Lord's hiding. He says, seek and you'll find. I think, if

you really are saying, God, how do you want me to worship you,

He'll answer you with your whole heart. So praising God with our whole

heart will look a little different for everybody. But secondly, we want to

have a fully engaged mind. Mind, meaning we actually think about the words

that we're singing. Think about what we're proclaiming with our mouth, and the

words that we sing should be increasing our affections for God, or increasing our

love of Him, or increasing our joy in His presence. Think about those

words that you're singing. We aren't just shutting off our brains and mindlessly repeating

words over and over again. No, we're intentional about our words and thoughts.

When we praise the Lord, He's listening. God's listening. Make it

real. If you were to walk up to someone you care about and they

turned and gave you your attention, and then you just let your mind go

into started saying things without having a real connection to the person you're talking to,

that'd be weird, right. Why do you think it is? When

God? When you're speaking to God, he's listening, The creator the universe,

boone who loves you, who died for you. Fully engage our minds

and worship. It's not just our hearts, it's both. So when we

go into this next time of singing, that's all I want us to do.

We get a chance. Let's consider how can I better sing praises to

the Lord with my whole heart and my whole mind, from the deepest parts

of me, with a fully engaged mind, knowing who it is that I'm

worshiping. How can I do that? Can you guys please stand your feet?

So, like I said, we're gonna sing a song. You're gonna

sing it, not me, just kidding. I'm gonna sing it. I'm

gonna gonna allowed hopefully un key. But we're also going to have myself off

to the side. Pastor Kirk will be on the side, and we'll be

there to pray for you guys, whatever you need. If you need prayer,

if you don't feel comfortable coming up, I really wish I would like

for you guys come up and get prayer if you need it. But if

you don't feel comfortable and we'd rather write it on the connect card, you

can do so. You can write it on the back where we have questions.

It says need prayer or have questions. You can fill out out that

and if you want it to remain private or just go to the elders,

just make sure you note it on there and we'll be praying for it as

elders. But if you don't write that on there, then it'll go out

to as many people as we can get praying for it. So the church

leaders, people in community groups, all that stuff because we want lots of

people praying. So if you don't feel comfortable, come up and get in

prayer, good and just write it on the connect card. Also, this

is a way for us to get to know you and who you are.

If you want to fill up the other side these you drop in the offering

box on your way out, and this is the same place. If you

can't prepared to give, you can use the giving envelope and drop that there

as well. So we're gonna I'm gonna pray and we're gonna worship together.

And I hope I'm not forgetting anything. If i am, someone just nudge

me. God, we thank you for today. We thank you that you've

given us the freedom to worship you, to lift our voices and praise your

great name. God, remind us that you are worthy of all praise.

That we can without fear and without reserve and just offer up ourselves as a

living sacrifice to you. And when we praise, offer that sacrifice of praise

as well that we lift our voices and proclaim how amazing you are. That

it brings you glory, and it benefits us because it reminds one another of

how amazing you are, how good you are. So God, there's areas

we need to be challenged in or stretched in, uncomfortable areas you want to

bring us into. God, please give us the strength and courage to walk

in those and walk in obedience to you that as you're convicting our hearts.

Don't let us get off easy. Let us walk in obedience to where you've

called us to be. Let us joyfully just praise your amazing name for who

you are, the creator of all things, Our King, our Lord,

our Savior. So God, we just thank you for this moment and pray

that we not the we, that you grow our affections for you and our

hearts and that we can express it. Thank you for all this, and

Jesus name, everybody said Amen,