God calls us to sing and sing well. Rob Smith reflects on what God is calling us to do in singing as his people and how singing builds us as disciples. CREDITS: The Reach Australia Podcast is brought to ...
God calls us to sing and sing well. Rob Smith reflects on what God is calling us to do in singing as his people and how singing builds us as disciples.
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TRANSCRIPT:
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0:01
G Day, I’m Pete Hughes and you’ve clicked on the Rich Australia podcast.In our last episode, we heard Andrew Heard do an excellent introduction to the idea of singing in church.And what is that like?This one, Rob Smith is taking us through what it means to sing in church, and this is such a great impassioned plea to sing well in church.
0:22
If you haven’t heard the introduction, it’s certainly worth listening to that.So I’ll put the link in the show notes, but here is Rob Smith.Enjoy.I’ll hand.It to you.Thank you Toby and thank you Andrew for for setting things up.
0:41
If not setting me up, that’s but let me just I’ve got the biggest clicker I’ve ever seen in my life here, but hopefully that will help us.I do have some slides you’ll also find on the app, if you haven’t found it already.
1:00
There is an outline for this address there not with the quotes on the slides there also, I think accessible, but that may be helpful for those who like taking notes or at least following the structure of things.Why do God’s people sing?
1:17
You know, what are the powers and the purposes of congregational song?How does our singing together relate?So that call that command to love the Lord our God with heart, soul, mind and strength.These are the questions.
1:34
Well, I, I’m going to be talking about with you, thinking about together with you.And as many of you will be aware, I, I have been thinking about these these things for a long time.I’ve been reading about them, writing about them, speaking about them, and yes, have some books out there that have tried to digest the wisdom that God has so far given me.
1:53
And of course, it won’t surprise me at all, some of you, if some of you have heard me before, read me before, and therefore some of the things I’m saying this morning will be very familiar to you.I suspect that will be the case for some, if not many of us.But even if it is the case, I’m confident it won’t hurt you to hear certain things again, particularly in the context of this conference and the aims of this conference as we seek to understand how to love God Better Together.
2:29
I’m sure you are convinced, as I am, that the glorification of God is the primary purpose of our existence.It’s why you are here.It’s why we’ve been made.It’s why we’ve been redeemed.It’s also, unsurprisingly, although as Andrew said, perhaps not uncontroversially, the primary purpose of our gatherings, right, the 1st and greatest commandment applies across the board, the church life as well as to all of life.
3:01
Now, as I’m sure you understand, glorifying God together is hardly reducible to singing.We glorify God in many ways.Indeed, we should glorify Him in every way.But certainly as we listen to His Word together, as we give attention to hear His, to His voice that we might hear His voice, that brings glory to God, right?
3:22
As we pray together in faith, that brings glory to God.So we serve one another in love, that brings glory to God.And yes, of course, here’s whether that sort of Nexus between edification and glorification is really important to appreciate, right?As we edify, we glorify, and as we glorify, we edify.
3:40
Those two things roll together and run together and must never be set at odds against each other.But of course, none of those things I’ve just mentioned requires us to sing.And yet of course God calls us to sing.I heard that Ray mentioned how many times, Ray?
3:57
How many commands?Was it 50?Yeah.OK, so this is not this is not a sub theme in Scripture.There are many commands, many exhortations, many calls to sing.And of course God gives those to us.
4:12
Well, for many reasons, and we are going to focus this morning on three of the principal reasons, three key purposes why we should sing together, why we indeed we do sing together.
4:29
And again, you may have heard me talk on these themes before, but I want to think together with you about singing as a way of praising God, singing as a way of praying to God, singing as a way of proclaiming God’s Word.So that’s the shape.
4:46
So let’s begin at the beginning, singing and praise.Now you don’t have to read too far the Scripture to realize that biblical praise is verbal.It comes out the mouth, it’s articulated.
5:03
Now again, it doesn’t always have to take the form of song.You can speak praise.You can chant praise.You can recite praise.You can shout praise, but of course you can also sing praise.In fact, there’s no escaping the fact that singing is a vital form of praise according to Scripture.
5:21
And there’s a specific Hebrew word that means to sing praise.Zama.Have a look at Psalm 96 on the screen.There we are, is it?There?There we are.Oh, sing to the Lord a new song.
5:40
Sing to the Lord all the earth.Sing to the Lord, bless His name, tell of His salvation from day-to-day, declare His glory among the nations, His marvellous works among all peoples.For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.He is to be feared above all gods.
6:01
Now apart from the very obvious and very strong link here between singing and praise, the other thing you see in this, in these verses is that praise sun praise has two aspects to it, a vertical, horizontal adoration proclamation.
6:20
We praise God to God and we praise God to others, right?We sing to the Lord, we bless his name, and we sing of the Lord as we tell of his salvation, as we declare His glory.
6:37
And of course, often we’re doing both at once.In fact, you can’t help but do both as once, both at once.Because when we sing to the Lord, well, unless you in solitary confinement, others will hear.And even if you are in solitary confinement, the angels will hear.
6:56
But of course, when we sing of the Lord, he is present, present to receive his praise.Now the importance of singing our praises to God.I think it’s clear, just as we said a moment ago from a number of times, God calls us to this activity, but the fact that he has to call us and command us and urge us and exhort us, that tells us something, something really important.
7:24
It tells us that while praise should come naturally to us, and of course often it does come naturally to us, it doesn’t always come naturally to us.We need help.We need prodding, We need beckoning.In fact, praise can be a battle.
7:44
It be, can be something we resist for reasons many.And so it’s something we need to be exhorted to do, summoned to do.And of course, that shouldn’t surprise us, really, when you think about it, right?Every aspect of Christian obedience is an arena, is an arena of conflict.
8:04
There’s nothing God wants you to do, calls you to do, desires you to do, that’s in the flesh.And the devil aren’t going to work their Dundas to stop you doing.And so praise too is an arena in which we, the people of God, have to fight to be faithful.
8:24
And fight is what we need to do.We need to be aware of the forces pitted against us.Spiritual forces, physical forces, emotional forces, relational forces, cultural forces, traditional forces, sometimes even theological forces, defective theology, all these things can seek to deflect us from giving God the praise that is rightly His.
8:52
And so let me talk to you about some strategies for engaging in the battle to give God the praise that is indeed rightly His.How do we push back against sin, the flesh and the devil?How do we seek to praise God as Scripture calls us to, with a whole heart?
9:13
Not with a half heart or a part heart, but a whole heart.How might we do that, do that more, do that better?Well, three suggestions.First, we need to regularly remind ourselves and remind each other that God truly deserves our praise like He really does deserve our praise.
9:44
Let me just give you some psalms that tell you that Psalm 7 verse 17 I will give to the Lord the thanks with the praise.Yadah is the Hebrew word here due to His righteousness.
10:05
He is due praise because of his righteousness.And I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High, Psalm 18, verse three.I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, and I’m saved from my enemies.Somebody asked me once and said, why did you write the song by the name Worthy of all praise And just, well, perhaps rather flippantly, I said because he is.
10:33
Which of course wasn’t really what they were asking.They already knew that.But but he is right.Worthy of all praise.You can’t over praise God.Yeah, we can over praise each other.We can over thank each other.Yeah, we can make too much of things and and you know, over egg the pudding, as this old saying goes, not with God, right?
10:55
Think of the living creatures around the throne.Day and night.They never cease 24/7, week after week, month after month, year after year, millennia after millennia.Why?Because God’s glory is inexhaustible and therefore his praise is total and our praise therefore should be unending.
11:20
Psalm 147 praise the Lord for it is good to sing praises to God, for it is pleasant.Or again, the Hebrew could hear, could be He is beautiful and a song of praise is fitting, appropriate, right?
11:39
So what’s the point?My point is that the God who is our Creator, the God who is our Redeemer, the one who is our Saviour, the one who is our sanctifier, He deserves every bit of praise that you and I could possibly muster, and then a whole lot more praises, His due praises.
12:00
What is right praise.Well, He is worthy of all praise, endlessly deserving.And so it’s entirely fitting that we should praise Him at all times and especially when we’re together.
12:17
OK, so that’s the first thing.We need reminding of this.I need reminding of this constantly, right?We used to talk in, you know, some of the older sort of liturgies about, you know, beginning our church gatherings with a call to worship.And so we should, because we need calling and we need prodding often.
12:41
Second strategy, we need to remind ourselves and each other that God repeatedly demands our praise.Doesn’t just leave it up to us.No, He tells us what is right and what we are to do.
12:57
Have a look at Psalm 47 here.Just the opening verse and then the final verses.Clap your hands or people, shout to God with loud songs of joy.And then the Psalm concludes by saying sing praises to God.
13:12
Sing praises.Sing praises to our king, sing praises for God is the king of all the earth.Sing praises with Assam.It’s a bit hard to miss, isn’t it?These are not kind of friendly suggestions.
13:29
They’re more than invitations.As somebody who tried to tell me that all the commands of Scripture are really just invitations, well, yes, they are invitations.They’re also commands.They’re imperatives.But of course, these are not burdensome commands.These are beautiful commands.
13:44
They’re liberating life giving commands because God, he was calling us to do what he has made us to do, what he has saved us to do.So praise is the path of joy, praises the way of freedom.But don’t miss the fact that these are what you might call demanding commands, right?
14:07
You can’t do them with a cup of coffee in the hand and hand in the pocket, right?Yeah.We’re talking here about shouting, we’re talking about clapping.We’re talking here about loud songs, right?This is sustained, energetic, full blooded, full bodied engagement in giving glory to God.
14:26
That’s what’s being asked of us.That’s what Scripture shows us.It what Scripture calls us to do, we need a reminding of this and the goodness of it, the joy of it, the beauty of it.
14:47
Thirdly, we need to remind ourselves and each other that God deeply desires our praise.He deserves it, he demands it, and he actually desires it.Now, I’m not going to get into a big discussion about the impassibility of God and, and some of those important theological doctrines, but any kind of doctrine of God that somehow leaves this out or thinks that God actually doesn’t want our praise is deeply defective from a biblical standpoint.
15:22
You know, God describes himself in relation to the people of Israel, at least describes Israel as those whom I have formed for myself that they might declare my praise.That’s his purpose, because that’s his passion.That’s why the apostle Paul in Ephesians one speaks of believers, speaks of the church as those who’ve been chosen for the praise of his glory.
15:47
That’s God’s purpose.That’s God’s passion, right?He demands our praise because He desires our praise, and He desires our praise not only because it’s good for us, which it is, but because it pleases Him.
16:10
Now if you know the love of God, if you know the grace of God, then that will be of interest to you, concern to you.If you know the compassion of Christ, the mercy of Christ, it will be your heart’s joy to give glory to Christ.
16:29
Now, friends, The upshot of all this is that we need to learn better.I need to learn better to give ourselves to praise.I really mean that give ourselves.It doesn’t kind of happen by accident.
16:48
It requires intentionality.It requires deliberation.It requires determination.It requires effort.It requires energy.We need to give ourselves to praise, right?There is choice involved.
17:03
Yeah, yes, there will be times when we almost can’t help but give ourselves the praise.But even then there’s choice involved.There’ll be many times because when it perhaps it’s difficult to give ourselves the praise, but we are called upon to do it and God will help us to do it, and we’ll be blessed in the doing because it is indeed a good choice, the right choice in view of God’s mercies, indeed the only true choice.
17:32
How can we hold back praise from the one who has held back nothing from us, not even his own beloved Son, right.He deserves more than the dregs of our attention, the leftovers of our affections.Andrew was reminded me earlier of a little anecdote I put in my book, Come There to Sing, where I was taken 1 evening by some men of a previous church to a rugby match.
18:00
And it amazed me just, and I don’t say this, you know, to be unkind to them, but he, these men were, you know, in tears at points in the match.They were leaping to their feet.Their hands were in the air.There were shouts, you know, bursting forth from them.And I just was, well, they’re right into it.
18:19
OK.And then we got to church the next morning and it’s like this.And the contrast just hit me in the face.I thought, what is going on there?What is going on there that this absolutely trivial sporting event should produce such praise, such passion?
18:46
And when the greatness and glory of the God of the universe, the Son of God who died for our sins and rose from the dead for our eternal blessed day, he gets nothing.What is that?Well, Andrew said it’s a problem.
19:10
Let’s work at this problem.Let us remind ourselves, remind each other that we gather together to give glory to God.And if you’re struggling to find words, you know as a pastor, as a, as a leader, whatever, as a song leader, what if you’re struggling to find words?
19:32
Use these ones.John Wesley, sing lustily and with good courage.Beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep, But lift up your voice with strength.Be no more afraid of your voice now, no more ashamed of it being heard than when you sung the songs of Satan.
20:02
Much more to say on that score, but let’s move on.Secondly, to singing and prayer.Because just as praising God is bigger than singing well, so singing is bigger than praising.Singing also can be a way of praying.
20:21
And let me I guess state what I hope it’s obvious.You can’t.You can of course speak your prayers.You indeed you can pray silently.But we can again recite prayers, chant prayers.We can also sing prayers.
20:39
Now this is not just a truism as it were.It’s an observation from Scripture.The book of Psalms is our prime example.Yet again, God’s songbook is this rightly been called.It’s also a prayer book.A large proportion of the Psalms are, in fact, prayers.
20:57
I mean, sometimes it’s written right there in the superscription so you don’t miss it, but often it’s embedded in the content content.And of course, if there’s one thing we know about the Psalms, it is that many of them, maybe not all of them, but certainly many of them, were sung by the, well, the Old Covenant people of Israel, and also by the New Covenant New Testament church.
21:20
And of course, all of them have been sung and can be sung and still are being sung.And So what that tells you, friends, is that the exhortations that we have in the New Testament, you know, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, to sing psalms, which I take it is a reference to the Psalter, of course, with hymns and spiritual songs we’ll talk about in the moment.
21:39
But that command, that exhortation to sing psalms contains within it therefore a command to sing prayers.That’s precisely what many of the psalms are.Now of course, that doesn’t mean that we should only sing the Psalms, nor does it mean that the psalms should only be sung.
22:03
Yeah, yes, we can read them.Yes, we can say them together.And I’ve been in churches that have done both of those things.But it is instructive to realise that God’s people have been singing their prayers for a very long time.And here we’re talking about you difficult prayers, the laments as well as the thanksgivings.
22:33
And so whether or not we revive the practice of Psalm singing, and I know there are moves afoot in many parts of the world to try and rehabilitate the lost art of Psalm singing, the great value of singing our prayers is that singing, well, anything, singing praise, but singing prayers in this context is a very powerful way of engaging, well, let’s just say the head and the heart, mind and emotion, thought and feeling.
23:09
That’s the famous saying comes from the guy who wrote the songs for the Wisp of Oz.In fact, he said words help you think a thought.Music helps you feel a feeling.The song helps you feel a thought.And we need to learn how to feel thoughts as well as think feelings, and singing helps us do that.
23:32
It brings cognition and affection together in a very profound and very powerful way.It’s one of the reasons God calls us to sing.It’s one of the reasons he calls us to sing our prayers.Of course, in singing our prayers, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to biblical prayers, right?
23:54
Paul urges us to sing hymns and spiritual songs.Indeed, many of those may be prayers as well.OK, so we, you know, we’re to sing the whole gamut of Christian congregational offerings, right?Right there from inspired Psalm to to, you know, spontaneous song and everything in between That all things are yours.
24:15
What is essential is that we bring our prayers to God authentically, helpfully.And if we do so in song, it helps us to do so emotionally.Now, one of the questions that, you know, people have raised, not just about, well, the praise of Scripture and sung prayers and so on, but just about songs generally, is whether we should are best off singing only the text of Scripture or whether it’s permissible to seeing the truths of Scripture but in what some people call, you know, extra biblical words.
24:55
And of course, well, my view is certainly the latter.It’s just the preaching principle applied to song, right?When we preach, we don’t just read the Bible.Well, you do read the Bible, but then we preach on the Bible and expound the Bible and apply the Bible in words that are not necessarily of the Bible but convey the truth of the Bible.
25:14
OK, So the key thing is that we are seeing the truth of Scripture, whether we’re seeing those truths in the text of Scripture, which we can do and should do, or whether we’re seeing those truths in words that go beyond Scripture.It’s the truth that needs to be conveyed.
25:32
And what that tells you is that we therefore, again, have all kinds of options.We have a rich treasury of, well, liturgical resources and hymnody and salmony and all the rest of it.There’s a lot there.There’s an ocean we can draw on.
25:48
Some of us only you take a little thimble to that ocean, You know, one person told me once, we only sing songs written in the last five years.I thought, Why?Why would you do that?Why would you neglect this heritage?
26:08
No.So there’s a lot there we can draw on.And of course, a lot of the songs we do sing are prayers, you know, take a song, him like may the mind of Christ our Saviour, there’s a prayer.Or let your Kingdom come, there’s a prayer.I mean, you have a look at your song list, you’ll already have lots of prayers in there.
26:30
So in one sense, maybe we don’t need to change it very much.But here’s what I want to suggest.I think we need to be much more conscious of what we’re doing, much more intentional, intentional about how we do it and where we do it and why we put this song here and so on.
26:50
And so we need to, you know, as we’ll wake up to the fact that as we are seeing this next song, we are praying to God.And, well, it may well be that the song leader at your church if they’re.Yeah, alert to this, we’ll introduce a song next Sunday by saying let us join our hearts and minds and voices together in prayer to God as we sing this next song, because of course, that’s what we’re often doing.
27:21
So let’s wake up to that and let’s draw people’s attention to that.The other implication of this, as I see, is that it’s just a reality that our times of singing and our times of praying therefore are not two separate baskets.
27:36
Right There might look like that on the run sheet, you might look like song time here, prayer time there.But the reality is not that.And when we realise the reality is not that, it opens up new possibilities.We might actually deliberately intersperse spoken prayers, sung prayers, the prayers of one, the prayers of many, spontaneous prayer, prayer in the form of a hymn.
28:02
We’ve got options.We don’t just always have to do the familiar.I mean, that’s my goal, you know, as someone who’s well chosen many songs and constructed many orders of service, You know, I my natural inclination is to just press, you know, what is it?
28:19
Rinse and repeat.Is that the expression?Fight that.Now let me just say a quick word about singing and Thanksgiving.Yeah, strictly speaking, praying is asking.
28:37
And so we pray with Thanksgiving because they’re actually two different things.Prayer is asking, Thanksgiving is giving thanks.Who knew?But of course they go together because when you ask God for things, guess what?He gives them or sometimes gives us better things or perhaps doesn’t give us things because He knows they’re not what we actually need.
28:56
But the bottom line is prayer and Thanksgiving go together.And so our sung prayers and our sung thanksgivings likewise should go together.It’s why Colossians 316, for example, you know, urges the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with Thanksgiving in your heart to God.
29:13
That’s why Ephesians 5 follows the instruction there of again, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, with the words, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
29:33
Now again, let me just give you a few quick psalms.Do I have them or do I lose them?No, there you go.Oh, here we go.So here are some psalms.The Lord is my strength and my shield.In Him my heart trusts, and I am helped, my heart exalts, and with my song I give thanks to Him.
29:56
Psalm 33 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre, make melody to him with the harp of 10 strings.It’s good to give thanks to the Lord.It is good to give thanks to the Lord, indeed to sing praises to your name, O Most High, I give you thanks.
30:15
O Lord, with my whole heart before the gods, I sing your praise.Now I realized as I skipped through my slides there, I left out a slide that you ought to see because it’s Martin Luther where he hears.
30:33
To hear is just stressing something that applies to this point as to pretty much every point I’m making this morning, which is again got to do with the this bringing together of heart and mind, of thought and feeling, intellect and emotion.Next to the word of God, says Luther.
30:50
Music deserves the highest praise.Why?Because she’s a mistress and governess of those human emotions which control men or more often, overwhelm them.Whether you wish to comfort the sad, subdue frivolity, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate, what more effective means than music could you find?
31:16
So there’s Luther.He understood these things.All right.Well, let me just simply wind up this point by making the obvious point that many of our songs, both ancient and modern, all hymns, contemporary choruses, are Thanksgivings.
31:37
And we need to again, lock into that, understand what we’re doing, understand why we’re doing it, help God’s people to grasp what they are being called to do, what indeed the song is calling them to do.Yeah.Whether it’s now thank we all our God, whether it’s Jesus, thank you, whatever it is, whatever song of Thanksgiving, let us be conscious and let us be filled with gratitude that we who are once children of wrath and now children of mercy.
32:08
And so again, we have endless reasons for thanks.All right, singing and proclamations. 3rd and final point here.We praise God in song, we pray to God in song, but we also proclaim the word of God in song.
32:26
This is clear in Scripture.The word is ministered, of course, as it’s read, as it’s preached, but also as its sun.It doesn’t of course, mean that we should only sing the word.Of course not.Nor did Jesus and the apostles go around singing the gospel.
32:42
No, they didn’t.They they spoke it, they preached it, they declared it.But the sun word and the spoken word go together, right?They’re not at war with each other.They serve one another and supplement one another.
33:00
And again, we need to understand the powers of music, the wonders of song, and the way in which the sun word can sometimes do things that the sermon didn’t.You know, I’m a preacher and I, you know, sometimes, you know, some the sermon just this is someone.
33:17
But that third song, boom, because that’s the word in the song.That was the word this person needed at that point, at that day, at that moment.Now have a look at Luther once again.
33:34
He says music is a vehicle for proclaiming the word of God, right.It’s not just a leg stretching exercise.What a ridiculous, almost blasphemous thought that is.Now it’s a vehicle for proclaiming the Word of God.
33:49
The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given, only given to man, to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, namely, by proclaiming God’s Word through music and by providing sweet melodies with words.
34:06
Of course, that’s not just Luther’s view.Guess whose view?It also is the apostle Paul.Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body, and be thankful.And then here’s the key verse.
34:23
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.And whatever you do in Word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
34:41
Now look, I’m sure many of us in this room have done our exegesis on these verses and maybe even preached on them and, and, and LED studies on them and even perhaps written about them.But let’s just see what’s here.Catch the thought flow.How’s the peace of Christ rule in our hearts?
34:59
It is as the word of Christ dwells in US richly.And how does the word of Christ dwell in US richly as we teach and admonish one another in all wisdom?And how does that happen, Says Paul?It is by seeing, not only by singing, but in this context, this verse, by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God.
35:25
OK, so singing isn’t just something we do before the sermon or after the sermon.It’s part of the sermon.Whereas Lucy is sometimes called the 2nd sermon.It’s certainly a part of that, the whole semonic enterprise, part of the ministry of the Word that happens in the gatherings of God’s people.
35:48
And it’s the part where we all preach, where we teach and admonish one another.There’s a reciprocity.This is now the many to the many rather than the one to the many.We preach to ourselves.
36:03
We preach to each other so that the Word of Christ might dwell in US richly.And again, it’s a humbling fact for those of us who are preachers.But it’s also part of the wonder of song that the songs people sing are often remembered long after the sermons they’ve heard are forgotten.
36:21
That doesn’t mean the sermons haven’t done them a power of good.Of course they have.Of course they do.But they don’t stay in the mind the way that song or hymn stays in the mind.They go together, the word spoken, the word read, the word preached and the word sung.
36:44
Now what’s this going to mean in practice?Let me make three points as we kind of come into land here.First of all, we must always sing truthfully, right?We must sing the truth.If we see nonsense, we see heresy, we’re doing great damage.
37:00
If we see truth, then the powers of music, the wonders of song, well do their God appointed business.OK, so no amount of musical or poetic artistry can substitute for a faithful articulation of God’s Word in a song.
37:20
And if a song doesn’t do it, ditch it.Find another one.There’s plenty out there.Sing truthfully.Secondly, sing clearly.And here I’m talking about making sure the songs are intelligible to the church that are singing them.
37:38
It doesn’t mean you have to go for a lowest common denominator sort of approach.You know, people can be helped to understand what they’re singing and they can grow into a song.Again, it does mean that if a church is not, but sorry, if a song is not edifying the church because it’s not intelligible to the church, it is not glorified to God or indeed benefiting the church, replace it.
38:04
Thirdly, sing fervently.I take it that’s why Paul puts in that word richly.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly because it could have cost.Dwell in you poorly, ineffectually, superficially.
38:25
Don’t dare to do that.Make sure it dwells in you richly by seeing the truth clearly and by seeing the truth passionately.Let me give you one last John Wesley word here where he says, let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you.
38:46
If it is a cross to you, take it out and you’ll find it a blessing.OK, When you’re tired, when you’re distracted, these are the things we need to call to mind.
39:04
Friends, in giving us the ability to sing and make music, the Lord has given us a very great gift, a gift that not only edifies us, but a gift that glorifies Him.And as we sing His praises together, as we sing our prayers together, as we sing His word to each other, well, the powers of music are such that we are profoundly united together, and we have profoundly integrated ourselves as thought and feeling unite.
39:42
And So what a wonderful gift we have.And that’s why JC Rile, who we had mentioned by Andrew earlier, had this wonderful word to say, with which I conclude there is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing effect about a thoroughly good hymn which nothing else can produce.
40:01
It sticks in men’s memories when texts are forgotten.It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.Preaching and praying shall one day cease forever, but praise shall never die.The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion.
40:17
The writers of good hymns and you know, I might add, the choosers of good songs, which is what some of us are in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church.Amen.Amen.
40:40
That was Rob Smith.I hope that you take some time to to pray and to process what you’ve heard.Rob’s also written some great stuff.I’m going to put a link to one of his books that I personally found very encouraging.Oh, come, let us sing.That’ll be there in the show notes.
Reach Australia is a network of churches and ministry leaders all coming together for the sake of the gospel - we love being a network that works together and shares free resources. We long to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches all across Australia.
