Kind reader, I hope your week has been going well and I hope you are making plans to be with the people of God in church this Sunday! We are continuing our look at the various components that make up our Sunday morning worship gathering. Last week, we talked about why we begin our services with a Scripture Reading. This week, why do we sing? The simple answer is because the Bible calls us to. However, we can draw that answer out a little bit more biblically to let why we sing motivate our actual singing.
First, we sing to praise God for who He is. Psalm 95-98 is full of praise to God for who He is. Psalm 95:3 says, "For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.". Psalm 96:4 says, "for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, he is to be feared above all gods.". Psalm 97:1, "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice.". And, Psalm 98:1, "Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.". What the Lord has done brings us to another reason of why we sing.
Second, we sing songs of praise to God for what He has done. In Exodus 15, the people of Israel sing praise to God for His victory over Pharaoh. In Judges 5, Deborah and Barak sing to celebrate God's victory over the king of Canaan. Most notably, in Luke 1, Mary sings praise to God for bringing the promised Messiah to the world. And, in Revelation, we see an eternal worship gathering around the throne of God, "for the marriage of the Lamb has come" (Revelation 19:7).
And finally, through our singing of praise to God, we sing to encourage one another. This is likely to be the most commonly misunderstood part of singing praise to God in our public worship gatherings. Ephesians 5:19 says that we are to address one another with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody to the Lord with your heart." Have you ever wondered what this means? It's means that when you and I sing God’s praise for who He is and for what He has done, we are encouraging one another to fix our hearts and minds on the Him. When we come to realize that singing songs on Sunday has so very little to do with us and so much to do with glorifying God and encouraging the church around us, it changes how we worship. Suddenly, words like "His Mercy is More", cause us to realize the work God did in sending Jesus to die for our sin. Suddenly, when we hear “God and God Alone", we look to a Heavenly Father for who He is—sovereign, just, and loving. Suddenly, we stop caring about the worries of life because we are built up by Christians around us singing to God. And, these are just some of the reasons we sing! Wow! I'm excited to worship with you this week! I'll see you Sunday!
Grace & Peace,
John
(You can reach Pastor John at jwhite@thevillagemi.com)