Sing
God's people sing because we mirror a singing God. Songs uniquely do what sermons alone can't—engage memory, intellect, and imagination simultaneously, making gospel truth stick permanently within our souls.
The first thing that I’d like to show you is that God’s people sing.
This seems self-evidently true when you come to a text where God’s people are, well … singing. But you’d be surprised how many times over the years I’ve had to persuade fellow Christians that it is not only their duty to sing, but also their privilege. So let me say this as clearly and as simply as possible: The entire Bible bears witness to the truth that the people of God are a singing people.
Why do God’s people sing? Well, for several reasons. First of all, God’s people sing because we are created in the image of a singing God. Listen to Zephaniah 3:17:
'The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.'
So, one reason why we sing is because we, the children of God, love to imitate our heavenly Father.
'Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.' (Eph. 5:1)
Children who love their parents imitate them. As Christians, the Holy Spirit has enabled us to love our heavenly Father, and now our greatest hope is to be like Him in every way (1 John 3:2). And so we sing.
Another reason why we sing is because God commands us to. Consider what Paul writes to the churches at Ephesus and Colossae:
'And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.' (Eph. 5:18-21)
'Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.' (Col. 3:16 BSB)
Or consider the psalmist:
'Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him in song.' (Ps. 95:2 BSB)
So it’s pretty clear that singing our worship to God is not optional. It’s a command that must be obeyed by all who claim to love God.
'If you love me, you will keep my commandments.' (John 14:15)
Now, if you’re like most people, you probably want to know the why behind the command to sing. “Okay,” you might say, “I get it. God commands His people to sing. But why does He command His people to sing? What’s the purpose?” The answer (at least in part), is simple: because singing is good for our souls.
While the aspirations of the transhumanist project seem nearer now than ever before, the fact of the matter is that human beings are not computers. We don’t communicate in binary code. We don’t have a circuit board or an operating system. We are more than mere circuitry. Humans have a mind, will, and emotions, and we communicate and comprehend best when every aspect of our being is fully engaged, and few things have the ability to engage the whole person like the act of singing.
Singing engages …
• the intellect
• the imagination
• the memory
Let’s consider each in turn.
You know, without me having to explain very much at all, how well singing engages the memory. Think about how often you find yourself singing a hymn for the rest of the day after church, or how you wake up in the middle of the night with a song stuck in your head. There’s something about beauty and melody and rhythm that makes information stick. This is why we put the ABCs into song form. The song makes it stick.
Have you ever forgotten the words to Jesus Loves Me, This I Know?
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong;
they are weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
Bible studies are great, sermons are powerful, and Scripture memorization always strengthens the soul, but singing the gospel helps us remember it in a way that listening to it and meditating on it alone can’t.
When you read through the Bible, you find that the great problem of God’s people is that they are constantly forgetting His grace. I call it gospel amnesia. So God, in His loving kindness, is constantly arranging their lives together to help them remember their great salvation. From the holy days of the Old Testament liturgical calendar to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper 'in remembrance' in the New, God is constantly helping His people do what they need to do so that they don’t forget their great salvation. One of the main ways that God makes the gospel stick in our hearts is by commanding and inviting us to sing it together with one voice, heart, and mind (Rom. 15:6).
Second, singing engages the intellect. The best hymns don’t just move our hearts, they also teach our minds. Consider the lyrics of this children’s song that, Luke, our music leader, has turned into a hymn for our local church:
God made the earth and filled it full
With seas and trees and animals
And then He made a man
But Adam, he was incomplete
So God gave him a helper, Eve
To carry out His plan
This happy husband and his wife
They showed the world what God is like
Until they disobeyed
And even though they lost it all
We still see fingerprints of God
In everyone He makes
We are the image of the God of all the world
He made us boys (boys)
He made us girls (girls)
Different pieces of the puzzle
Joined together perfectly
We are just the way God wanted us to be
Again, consider a more familiar hymn, Christ, the True and Better:
Christ, the true and better Adam
Son of God and Son of man
Who when tempted in the garden
Never yielded never sinned
He who makes the many righteous
Brings us back to life again
Dying, He reversed the curse, then
Rising, crushed the serpent’s head.
Christ, the true and better Isaac
Humble son of sacrifice
Who would climb the fearful mountain
There to offer up his life
Laid with faith upon the altar
Father’s joy and only son
There salvation was provided
Oh, what full and boundless love.
Amen! Amen!
From beginning to end
Christ the story, His the glory
Alleluia! Amen!
Christ, the true and better Moses
Called to lead a people home
Standing bold to earthly powers
God’s great glory to be known
With his arms stretched wide to heaven
See the waters part in two
See the veil is torn forever
Cleansed with blood we pass now through.
Christ, the true and better David
Lowly shepherd, mighty King
He the champion in the battle
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
In our place He bled and conquered
Crown Him Lord of majesty
His shall be the throne forever
We shall e’er His people be.
Finally, singing engages the imagination. Of course, not all music engages the imagination equally. And some unhelpful worship music engages the imagination in a way that is counterproductive. (I’d rather not think about God’s love like a sloppy wet kiss, thank you very much.) But a well-written worship song can engage the imagination and strengthen worship like few other things can. Consider, for example, these lyrics from the classic hymn Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal.
Hark, I hear the harps eternal ringing on the farther shore
As I near those swollen waters with their deep and solemn roar …
And my soul, tho’ stain’d with sorrow, fading as the light of day
Passes swiftly o’er those waters, to the city far away …
Souls have cross’d before me saintly to that land of perfect rest
And I hear them singing faintly in the mansions of the blest.
As a pastor, one of the main things I do is try to make the hope of heaven stick to the spiritual ribs of my people. I do that in private counseling and public teaching, both of which are utterly indispensable. But it really helps when my people can use their sanctified imagination to see that day as they sing about it on a Sunday morning.
When I sing Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal I think about the saints who have passed before me. I remember their courage, their faith, and even their failures. I imagine them, bruised and bloody from the battles of this fallen world, getting into the boat of Christ’s perfect righteousness, passing swiftly over the river from death to life, singing sweetly along the way. I imagine their voices calling out to me from the safety of the further shore, with the harps of God playing a perfect melody as they do. And then I imagine getting into that boat myself one day soon, and hearing that beautiful chorus as I make my own journey, my earthly sorrows fading as the light of day.
And of course, it is not just the great hymn writers (past or present) who engage our imagination with song. God is the original imagination engager. Consider the Song of Moses, one of the earliest songs in Scripture.
God could have merely told the Israelites in rote fashion that He rescued them by causing a wind to separate the waters of the Red Sea. He could have used charts and diagrams to explain the phenomenon. He could have used the Socratic method to dialogue with His people about His wonder working power. But He didn’t. Instead, He wrote them a song with lyrics like these:
'At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap;
the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.' (Exod. 15:8)
Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you … smell it? The nostrils of God blasting winds into the ocean deeps? The waters congealing in the heart of the sea? God doesn’t merely want to engage our intellect in worship, He also wants to engage and activate our imagination.
So, yes … God’s people sing. We sing because God sings. We sing because God commands us to sing. We sing because we need to sing and because we get to sing.
So it is my sincere prayer that every member of God’s church would grow to truly love to sing praises to the God who made us, the God who loves us, and the God who has saved us.
***This is taken from 'Insight 1: Sing' from Redemption Song: A Primer on Singing For the People of God***
