Let Heaven and Nature Sing
Ephesians 5:18-21
Illustration
I heard of a farmer who was making his regular visit to the big city to stock up on supplies. Only this time, for one reason or another, necessity kept the farmer in town over the weekend. So he decided to find a church for his Sunday worship.
Back home this farmer attended a little wood frame church were the preaching was energetic and the songs were of the old-time gospel variety. But on this weekend trip, the farmer decided it was time to gain a bit more experience of the religious world. So on Sunday morning he walking into a stately looking church, with massive columns and a ceiling higher than any grain silo he’s ever seen. This he concluded, was where they had “high church” meetings, as he’d heard them called. The farmer found a seat and worship the best he knew how, even though it seemed life he was in the “advanced” course and he was used to the “beginner” level.
When he arrived home at the farm, he started to give his wife an account of his visit to the “advanced” worship service. She listened with fascination; it was as if her husband had been to the Land of Oz. “The sing’ in, she demanded. What was the sing’ in like?”
“Anthems,” her husband replied. “We sang us some anthems.”:
“And what, pray tell, is an anthem?”
The farmer stroked his heard pensively. Well, he replied slowly, “I can’t rightly describe them, but it’s a little like this. If I was to say to you Bessie Mae, it’s time to feed the pigs, that would not be an anthem. No ma’am. But if I was to put it to you, Bessie, Bessie, Bessie Mae, Bessie Mae, it’s time; Bessie Mae, it’s time to feed, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to feed the pigs, Amen! – well now, as I understand it, that’s what you call an anthem.
Intro
It’s true that we have our various musical idioms. The way churches sing here has very little resemblance of the way a church sings in Africa or Brazil. And we have little idea how the first Christians expressed their melodies. What matters is that we are a singing people, nearly everywhere. If our faith is valid, as our hearts tell us it is, then we of all people can sing – regardless of our ability to carry a tune. John Wesley, once said, “Beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep. Lift up your voices with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, or more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Yet I know many people who don’t like to sing. I can see them from the pulpit, barely moving their lips as if they’re afraid the hymn might escape captivity. Or they shift form one foot to the other, watching everyone else and checking their watches occasionally. If I were to embarrass my non-singing friend by asking him about it, I can anticipate his reply: “Oh, pastor, you haven’t heard how poorly I sing. The Bible says ‘make a joyful noise,’ and I have the ‘noise’ part covered – by my singing sounds like and injured moose!”
The problem with that reasoning is that my friend isn’t singing for me. He isn’t singing for the people surrounding him in the pews. He sings for the pleasure of God, who accepts gifts based on the heart, not the craftsmanship. If you have a range of one note, that note is all the more beautiful in the ears of the Lord, if it’s offered up to Him. The joyfulness of the joyful noise isn’t determined by the social evaluation of your instrument, but by the divine evaluation of your heart.
True worship puts the songs within you and leaves it in place throughout the week. It may find full voice in the church, but the melody lingers on as you move through the hours of the workday, as you spend tie with your family, as you thank the Lord for another safe and fruitful day and drift off to sleep. It’s a shame that so few families still sing together. There was a time when ‘hymn sings’ were important features of family reunions. Music helped tie families together, and the content of the music was the greatness of God.
1 Corinthians 14:15b says, “I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.” When we immerse our hearts and minds in the music of worship, life changes radically. Who go about our business with a television commercial jingle on our minds when we can be bathing our minds with the Word itself, in musical form? Why face the trials of business with anything but songs of our awesome God on your tongue?
5 Reasons to Sing
I. Something to Sing About
a. Music, after all is amazing.
b. Studies have even indicated that your potted plants grow more rapidly if music is playing in the room.
c. Can you doubt that you, who are created in the very image of God, will grow more like Him, and more quickly, when His melodies and His truth are the soundtrack to your life>
d. God gave potted plants no lips for singing, but He gave you that ability – whether you have operatic talent or can only squawk like a bird.
e. And He’s given you plenty to sing about.
f. READ EPHESIANS 5:18-21
i. This incredible passage is itself music to our ears.
ii. It suggests several reasons your throat should be filled with praise.
II. We Sing Because His Spirit Fills Us
a. There have been many things said about what happens when we’re filled with the Spirit – many odd and controversial things, as a matter of fact.
i. But the Word of God says that when the Spirit of God comes among us, we begin to sing.
ii. We admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
iii. The true song of worship is born first of all out of this truth:
1. God’s Holy Spirit has come to live within us.
2. We tune our hearts to sing His praise because He is the One who does the fine tuning.
b. This is the validation that God is among us.
i. Martin Luther wrote, “The devil hates music because he can’t stand gaiety. Satan can smirk but he can’t laugh; he can sneer but he can’t sing.”
ii. Perhaps Luther was thinking of this amazing verse, in Psalm 126:2, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’”
iii. If you were an outsider among a new group of people, what would attract you most to them?
1. Perhaps it would be the twin glories of music and laughter that mark any family of kindred souls.
2. See uplifting music and laughter are signs that truly God has done great things for us.
3. The world cannot resist such joy.
iv. Perhaps the church is losing its influence with the world because we’re seldom perceived as having a sense of humor or hearts filled with spiritual music.
III. We Sing Because His Word Indwells Us (Colossians 3:16)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
a. This verse is very similar to the passage in Ephesians, but it adds significantly to our understanding of a lifestyle of worship.
i. Ephesians points to our being filled with the Spirit
ii. Colossians to our being filled with the Word of God, which dwells within us richly.
iii. When you combine those two passages together we see a melody and countermelody of being filled with God’s Word and God’s Spirit, responding with beautiful music in both cases.
b. We need both of these, the Spirit and the Word, to be Christians.
i. Subtract either and it’s simply not possible.
ii. One reshapes the hearts and the other the mind, and together they make us whole persons molded to the image of Christ.
iii. All the great enduring hymns and songs of worship are drawn from God’s Word.
IV. We Sing for the Rich Diversity of the Experience
a. It’s ironic, as we shall see, that there is so much controversy today over what kind of music is fit for worship.
i. Should we sing the old hymns?
ii. Should we sing the new songs?
iii. Should we sing directly from the psalms?
iv. Which is appropriate?
v.
b. The answer is YES!
c. Paul tells us to sing psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs.
i. That covers everything.
ii. In the earliest days of the church there was a great diversity in the music, just as there was a great diversity among the believers.
iii. People brought music from their various cultural backgrounds and baptized it in the transforming Word of God through His Spirit.
iv. They sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
d. Imagine the three different churches at a major intersection in town.
i. One adheres to the hymns
ii. The second sings only the new songs.
iii. The third church specialized in the spiritual songs.
iv. On Sunday morning you can stand in the intersection and hear all the music intermingle – to our ears it sounds like chaos, but as it rises to heaven, all of it miraculously interweaves until it becomes a beautiful harmony in the ears of the Lord, for so many people are worshiping.
e. We have no need to limit ourselves if God himself doesn’t do so.
f. Paul didn’t advise us to sing, “psalms or hymns or spiritual songs.” He used the word and – a word that means diversity.
V. We Sing to Rejoice
a. Make no mistake about it: Music is a special channel of divine blessing, comfort, and strength.
b. Even in the depths of suffering, we can turn our hearts and voices to lovely music provided by the hand of God.
c. Someday we’ll stand before the throne, singing and proclaiming all our praises to the King, with all the eloquence we’ve dreamed of having.
d. For now, set within this earthly realm, we have music to give us a preview, a foretaste of glory divine.
e. Music is a precious gift from God, planted in the grounds of our souls, then liberated by our lips to return to its heavenly home.
Closing
God will always make a way, and one of the clearest and straightest roads to Him is the music He gives us. What song is in your heart today.
