Do you ever have the awful experience of realizing just how right your parents really were? My mother often said, “You never really know how much you appreciate something until it’s gone.” There have been many times that I have found out that she was so very right. One of those aha times is a very vivid memory. It was Sunday, August 5, 2018. The church service was beginning. The hymn number had been announced and I was standing next to my wife as the congregation began to sing. I could not sing. Not a sound. Not even a whisper. I wept.

Losing the ability to verbally preach is a very painful loss, yet the longer I live in silence, not being able to sing out to the Lord is becoming just as painful. Oddly enough, though, the musical part of worship has become much more meaningful to me. I rarely sit in a song service without weeping through at least one song. Sometimes I weep because I cannot sing, other times I weep because the words I hear sink deeply into my soul and I am overwhelmed by the message.

After doing some math, I estimate that at the very young age of 52 I have participated in somewhere around 7000 worship services. This means that until the time I lost my voice I sang approximately 25,000 times in church services. That doesn’t even include college chapel services or youth group meetings. My point is, we sing so much we can easily take it for granted. I certainly did. 

In two of his letters, Paul gave similar musical related commands to the Colossian and Ephesian churches,

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

Colossians 3:16 (ESV): Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Sing to Me

Both texts speak to the fact that our singing should be, in part, directed to one another. God is the Object of our worship while those gathered with us in a corporate worship setting, both believing and unbelieving, observe our worship. These verses lift the motive for a song service much higher than many believers have for participating.

When a congregation lifts their collective voices in song we are to be ministering to one another. Our texts describe what that ministry looks like. 

Teaching

Have you ever thought of participating in your church’s song service as Great Commission living? The word “teaching” in Colossians 3:16 is the word Jesus uses when he is sending his disciples to all nations to “teach” obedience to his commands (Matthew 28:19). Paul made clear that all of God’s Word is profitable for “teaching” (1 Timothy 3:16). When we sing we should be teaching the Bible to each other. 

Admonishing

The first term, “teaching,” is the doctrinal side of the singing coin. The word, “admonishing,” might be called the application side of that coin. This word includes the ideas of warning and advising. Singing should have a counseling effect. The hymns and Gospel songs we sing in our worship should not only teach us what the Bible says, they should also teach us how to live what the Bible says. 

Singing is part of our discipleship ministry. So, disciple me by singing to me. I need to be taught how to filter what the Bible teaches about God and the Gospel down to how I live so that my life will bring him glory.

Sing for Me

Do we ever sing words that we don’t really believe? Do we sing testimony songs that do not accurately or currently reflect our testimony? There are times when the truth of a hymn should bring such conviction that we should stop singing and start repenting. If I can’t sing because of conviction, please sing for me until I can truthfully and joyfully sing again.

As the Church gathers for worship we are more than likely gathering with one or more people who are experiencing deep sorrow. Singing is a gift of grace we can offer those in sorrow. Sing to encourage and comfort. David reminds us that weeping and sorrow will, undoubtedly, come but they will also flee when joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5). The word joy in this text is often translated singing or song. Sorrow can turn into singing. So sing for those whose sorrow keeps them from singing. 

Sing with Me

I love how the end of Ephesians 5:19 is phrased in the English Standard Version, “singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,” I can’t make a joyful noise with my voice but I can still sing to the Lord. My heart can sing! We can sing even when our hearts are shattered. We can sing during our suffering. Like Paul and Silas, we can sing in the stocks. How? Colossians 3:16! We can sing because of what we know.

We Know God

I am afraid what Paul said about the Corinthian church is true of much of the modern church.

1 Corinthians 15:34

Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

The reason so many unbelievers in Corinth and in our world today know so little about God is because too many believers know so little about God. Preachers, we bear some responsibility for this. Why, because we teach and preach the Bible but we leave out the God behind it all. One only needs to scroll through their Facebook newsfeed to encounter multiple examples of the anemic, self-focused, small-view-of-God Christianity that characterizes much of the Church. 

For example, I, recently, came across this gem of theological shallowness.

“If God puts a Goliath in front of you, He must believe there is a David inside of you.” 

If you don’t see a problem with this statement, you have missed the whole point of why God included the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. The story is not, primarily about David or Goliath. It certainly is not about “Defeating the Giants in Your Life.” God even tells us the point of the story in the story (1 Samuel 17:45-47). Please forgive me if I sound frustrated. Actually, I am more than frustrated. I am concerned that we are missing so much that God has for us when we leave God out if his story. My concern and frustration is aimed at believers who have been saved long enough to know better and at preachers who teach their people to be shallow by presenting a low view of God. 

We Know God’s Word

What do you need to know about God today? Or maybe we should ask, what truth about God do you need to preach to yourself today? One of my biggest problems is that I don’t always tell myself the truth about God. I, too often, disobey Philippians 4:8 because I don’t think the truth about God.  If I don’t think the truth about God and about what he says about me, I cannot think the truth about myself. We need the Bible to permeate our thinking. Charles Spurgeon, whose own life was dominated by God and his word, once said of John Bunyan, “Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him.”

Paul tells us that the Bible is to dwell or take up residence in our lives so that it naturally permeates our thoughts and actions (Colossians 3:16). This is a very good reason to sing songs that are filled with theological truth that draw our focus away from self and to the glory of God. 

I must confess that I do not know God like I should but he has made it possible for me to know him as much as I want to. Growing in our knowledge of God will, I believe, be an eternal pursuit, but we should not wait until heaven to be “increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10).

Parents and pastors memorize, meditate upon and practice this text from Jeremiah. Teach this text to your children and church…

Jeremiah 9:23–24

23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 

24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Conclusion

Every believer has a music ministry. Paul teaches us that our song services are not just tradition or time-fillers. The song service is a time for focusing on God and ministering to those gathered with us. So, please, sing!