The Vital Importance of Singing Everywhere

Open with me to Ephesians and chapter 5, the book of Ephesians chapter 5. I have a very simple message for us today, it's about singing. And I'd like us to look at Ephesians chapter 5 and then we're going to jump to two psalms, psalm 118 and psalm 59. So get your fingers ready to jump there in a bit, but we'll be in Ephesians 5, psalm 118 and psalm 59. And I want to talk today about this, the vital importance of singing everywhere. The vital importance of singing everywhere. Let's read Ephesians chapter 5 verses 18 and 19. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. This is a beautiful, beautiful scripture. I'm going to pray one more time. Let's pray. Lord, I want to talk about singing today. We want to be instructed through your word today, Lord, about singing. We don't want to hear man's thoughts today. We want to hear your thoughts direct from the pages of Holy Writ, Lord. We want to hear your thoughts on this vital topic of singing. And Lord, I'm not talking about singing well. I'm not talking about us having beautiful voices. I'm talking about us singing with whatever we've got and singing in our hearts like we mean it and singing our hearts out to God. And Lord, I just pray that this simple message would get across, that everyone in this room would do what it says in Deuteronomy, that we would hearken diligently to the Lord, to the words of the Lord. Lord, we need our ears open so that we hear what you say today. So I just ask you, Lord, to break through by your spirit. Each and every one of us, even if we are Christians, Lord, we have dullness in us. We need you to come break through. We need your spirit, Lord. We need you to convict us. Please, Lord, come and convict each and every one of us. Let these words sink deeply into our hearts. Let them sink into our ears. Lord, let us be affected by what we hear today from your word, not from my mouth, but from your word, Lord. Please, I'm begging you, Lord, to send your spirit and illuminate your word to us. For the sake and for the glory of Jesus Christ, I'm asking, Lord, please. We are weak. We are frail. We need you, Lord. We need you today to open your word. I beg you. Amen. Amen. A beautiful hymn says, No storm can shake my inmost calm. While to that rock I'm clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? No storm can shake my inmost calm. While to that rock I'm clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? I want to talk to you today about the vital importance of singing everywhere. And we're going to talk about singing together, singing in the home, and singing alone. Amen. Singing together, like right here, singing in the home, and then singing alone. This is not a Mother's Day sermon, but I'm going to mention some mothers in it. I hope you don't mind. My mom is not a Christian, but please pray for her soul. Please pray that she gets saved. She's an incredible woman. She's a powerful woman. She's taught me so much. And she grew us up always singing Beatles songs. And so the impact of a mother singing is really high in my mind, because I can remember my mom singing. I can remember getting into the car and her wanting to turn on a Bob Dylan CD. You start to know about your mom's heart through how she sings, don't you? And I know about my mom's heart through how she dances, too. She would dance like this. She just goes like this, and then the rest of her body doesn't move, but she just goes like this, and she just laughs. And I just, I learned to be joyful through her, through how she dances, and through how she would sing. How much the more do we learn from our Christian mothers when we see them singing. When I got saved, I immediately went back to this story that my grandma, who I believe, I hope, was a Christian. My grandma would always walk around singing in the garden, right? She would sing, and he walks with me and he talks. And I told some of you this story. My grandpa would say, who's Andy? Andy walks with me. Who's Andy? Why are you off walking with Andy? And anyway, this was their little funny story. But she would go around singing that, Andy walks with me and he talks with me. And the minute I got saved, I could go back to that and think, what was grandma singing? Why was she singing that? And that's marked my entire life, because all I really care about in my Christian life is that Christ would walk with me and talk with me, and that I'd have a sweet little prayer life with him. And it has to be somehow attributed to my grandma, that you go back and you say, whoa, grandma was singing that. Whoa, mom was singing that. And it actually marks us for the rest of our lives, does it not? So this is a vital, vital topic. I want to talk about singing together, singing in the home, and singing alone. And we're just going to look at these three scriptures, and I hope it's helpful for you. Let's start with singing together, singing together when we meet. And, you know, you could think of this a little bit like a funnel. Think of the top of a funnel. There it is. We're all singing together. And then it goes from there to how we sing in the home. And then it goes from there into singing when you're all alone. And every one of us in this room, we need every one of those elements. We need to sing when we gather, and then we need to go home. And there need to be songs around us, songs in our cars, songs in our homes. And then when we're alone, when we're on our bed late at night, or when we're in our prayer closet, there also needs to be singing. So can you all picture that funnel of the singing Christian life from when we're together, to when we're in our home, to when we're completely alone? Starting with singing together, point one, singing together. Here it is right before us in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 and 19. Let me unfold these verses for you a little bit. First of all, verse 18, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. You all remember that we talked about that last week? We talked about being filled with the Spirit just last week, didn't we? Well, have you all sought it? Have you all thought about it? Have you all meditated on it? Have you all asked God for more filling of His Spirit? We don't want our sermons just to go by, right, in vain, no? We want the work we're doing here to be full. And so in verse 18, it says, be filled with the Spirit. That's a command for us. And what does it say right in the next verse? Be filled with the Spirit and have incredible mountaintop experiences every moment of your life. No, it says in verse 19, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Check that out, everybody. If we are truly filled with the Spirit of God, the immediate result right here in Ephesians chapter 5 is that we sing. Is that not beautiful? The immediate result is that we sing. And then look what Paul says. He doesn't just say sing, but he says we speak to one another through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I love that. Dan, I've called you out before, but I know that I love singing and looking at you, brother, because we tend to look at each other. And if anybody wants, turn around and look at Dan. He'll speak to you. He'll address you through song. And that's great. We ought to be looking at our hymnal and then we look at each other. Colossians chapter 3 in verse 16 adds this idea. It says teaching and admonishing one another. Okay, so we're not just speaking to each other, but we're actually teaching each other. We're admonishing one another. Isn't that beautiful? Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. And I'm looking at you, right? And we're admonishing one another to actually believe it, to actually take it up in our lives. I love that. That's so beautiful. Verse 19, speaking to one another or to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Here's the next thing we learn about singing together. We learn that there are three types of song here. Three types of song. And now, you know, if you go back through church history, one of the things you'll learn is that everyone wants to flatten this right here. People want to say those three types of song are actually just one. So then all of a sudden we're only singing psalms, right? That's called exclusive psalmody. And then other people will say, well, there are three types of songs here, but we don't really like singing psalms. So we're just going to sing new Christian music. And all of a sudden you're only singing one type of thing, right? But I want you all to notice this with me. Very important. Two things here. There is variety in this list, and it goes from complex to simple. Just first, again, think of that. There's variety here. You should not be able to read this verse and say, oh yeah, we just sing one type of hymn. We just like old hymns. Oh, we just like new songs. Oh, we only like psalms. No, Paul is writing this right here to bulldoze that in our minds. And so that what? We would have variety in our worship. Let's look at these three terms here. First is psalms. Psalms. What does that mean? It means psalms. It means the Hebrew book of psalms, right? So we ought to be singing the psalms. And I believe, again, that's the most complex category right here. So if you're singing the psalms, your music also has to fit the psalms. And it tends to mean that our music, well, it's somewhat complex, right? We've all tried to sing the psalms in this church, and it can be difficult to keep that going. But we must do it. We must be obedient to this command right here. So that's literally psalms. Okay, second category is hymns. In Greek, that's literally humnois. So it is a standard Greek word for hymns. It means songs of praise or songs of celebration. Okay, so how is that different from psalms? We have the psalms, and then here we have songs of praise or songs of celebration. Well, you all might notice that the New Testament adds songs of praise, doesn't it? We have the hymns of Zacharias, the hymn of Simeon, the hymn of Mary. We have Philippians chapter 2, which is most probably a hymn, probably written to be sung with some sort of metrical musical accompaniment to it. And so that's what we want to note here. We have psalms, and then these songs of praise. And almost every commentary I could find says that there's something metrical about hymns. Does that make sense to you all? Metrical means that there's something rhythmic about it. So like if we can say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. There's something steady, something rhythmic, something metrical about hymns. So that's the second category. Now if anyone ever tries to tell you, we don't sing hymns anymore because they're old-fashioned, we don't sing amazing grace because they're old-fashioned, you should point them to this verse and say, what we're commanded to sing in psalms and hymns. No? Amen. What's our third category? Spiritual songs. This is a very beautiful word in Greek. It's literally spiritual, pneumatikois, which means of the spirit or related to the spirit himself. And then this word songs is in the Greek odes or odais, odes. You all heard of an ode? What is an ode? An ode is something a little bit looser than a hymn. It's something impromptu and often spontaneous. But I think the word we really want to keep in mind is it's sort of looser. It's like when the voice just shoots off, right? If you look at old Greek odes, like there are the odes of Pindar, which were actually sung at the Greek Olympics, they would go all over the place. So the melody is going really low to really high, something like that. So I think of, for example, holy, holy, holy. I believe that's an ode. It goes da da dee da dee and then da da da. Okay, I'm embarrassing myself, right? But that's an ode when the melody is just flying all over the place. What would be other odes? Like, give me Jesus. I think that's one that goes, it's nice and low and then it shoots up high. So we have songs and hymns and spiritual songs. And I believe this last one, again, it also means something that's impromptu or spontaneous. Some of the modern worship hymns or songs might also be called spiritual songs because they're just sort of flying. They're a little bit looser. They're not so metrical or rhythmic. So do you all take note of those three ways of singing? Again, I want to stress they go from complex to simple. And Paul is stressing that there is variety in the way we sing. Please meditate on that when you go home, because all around us and in every church, we'll hear people who will go against that. They'll say, no, we don't want variety. We only want one type. And then the other thing you'll hear is that people don't want to have both complex and simple songs in what they sing. I'll just pause one second. You okay? Let me finish this thought. Think through this with me for one moment, everybody. Paul lists both complex and simple types of song here. And that's so important because we tend to only choose one. And people will say, I only want simple songs or I only want complex songs. So again, I just want us to be open. We should be able to sing in a worship service and sing a complex song by Isaac Newton, and then sing a super simple song that's made for children. And we should be able to have those together, working together. Amen. That's what Paul's talking about here. Let's look at the end of verse 19, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Here's the final point that we need in verse 19. Paul is telling us that when we sing, we actually mean it. When we sing, we actually mean it. What does he say? We sing and we also make melody in our heart to the Lord. So he's saying, engage your heart. So let's always ask that when we sing, as we gather, is my heart engaged? Do I really mean it? Is this penetrating deep into my heart? Isaiah says in Isaiah 29 verse 13, this people draw near to me with our mouth and with their lips to honor me, but have removed their heart far from me. Is it not so easy to do that brothers and sisters, that we can sing, but our heart is way over there. Paul's telling us right here, we sing and you want to make melody in your heart, deep in the heart. Somehow we're stirring up our heart to be there, to really and truly mean it. All that said in verses 18 and 19, I want to drive home this point by reading to you from John Wesley, the preface to his hymnal. His hymnal was published in 1761 and in John Wesley's preface, he says this, please listen, these words are so convicting and they helped me in congregational singing. Wesley says, sing all, see that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing. Isn't that beautiful? If it's hard for you to sing in church, he says, take up that cross and you'll find a blessing. If we say, my voice isn't working, I don't want to sing loud, I don't want to give it my all, he says, take it up and you will find a blessing. And then listen, he says, 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, nor more ashamed of its being heard than when you sung the songs of Satan. Isn't that beautiful? I want to read that last part one more time, because this is very powerful. Sing lustily. What does he mean by lustily? He doesn't mean with sexual immorality, does he? No. He means sing strongly, with courage, right? Lustily back then meant singing manfully, strongly and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength. Will you all remember that when we sing our final hymn today? Don't sing like you're half dead. Sing like you're alive. Lift up your voice with strength. And then he says, be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard than when you sung the songs of Satan. Some of you might wonder why I sort of bellow when I sing or try to sing as loudly as possible, but it's because I read what Wesley said here and it really convicted me. I remember being at the Civic Center here and at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert or at a Dave Matthews Band concert, and I was singing my guts out. You know all the lyrics. I can't even remember half a hymn now, but I used to know all the lyrics and we'd sing our guts out and you were just like entranced by what's going on there. I love what Wesley says here. We ought to sing way louder than we used to sing the songs of Satan. Amen? This is a beautiful thought. I want to encourage everyone, even if you have a bad voice, you just give your all to the Lord. You sing at the top of your lungs to the Lord because you've been redeemed. I love that. Praise God. Our second point, let's turn to Psalm 118, and these two points will be shorter than the first. But again, we have that sort of filter in mind. We sing together, but that singing together doesn't matter unless when we go home, we also sing at home. So look at Psalm 118 in verse 15. It's a very simple verse, but it says, the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. If you read the old Puritans, they prove that we have to do family worship through one verse right here, Psalm 118, verse 15. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. You'll notice that this verse is a fact. It's a reality. The psalmist is not commanding us to do this. He's just saying it's true. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. Isn't that incredible? So here we learn from example. He's saying this is true. If you're righteous and you have a tabernacle or you have a home, then the voice of rejoicing and salvation is heard in that home, in those tabernacles. It's a beautiful picture, and many commentators believe that Moses might have had a hand in writing Psalm 118. You see a lot of language in this psalm from Deuteronomy actually, but I want everybody to get the picture right here. Do you imagine when Moses and the tribes of Israel were traveling through the desert and when they get to a certain place, there would be the main tabernacle in the center, right? They'd plant that tabernacle, and there you have what? The altar and the holy place and the holy of holies, and all the worship of the people of Israel would take place around that central tabernacle. But then outside of that, all the camps of Israel would arrange themselves in flakes to the east, to the north, to the west, and to the south. Have you all pictured that when reading the Old Testament? There are three tribes this way, three tribes this way, three tribes this way, and three tribes this way. So three times four is what? Amen. Good. So that's the twelve tribes, right? But the picture there is a central tabernacle in the middle. All of our corporate worship can happen there, and then what does this verse say? The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. So stemming out from that central tabernacle, in every tent, in every direction, we're hearing the voice of rejoicing. Isn't that beautiful? It's not just praise, not just songs going out from the center, but every one of those tribes in every little tent is singing. I find that to be such a beautiful image. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. Here I just want to impress upon everybody for a moment how important it is that our houses are filled with singing. How important it is that our houses are filled with singing. There's a very precious video I've been watching on YouTube, and it's of a woman who was saved in the Azusa Street Revival. Her name is Maddie Cummings. She was saved when she was 11 years old in Los Angeles, 1907, in Azusa Street. She said of this revival, I wrote some of her quotes down, I want to give them to you. She said, God healed me, and now I can hear. She was deaf before the revival. She said, sometimes I think I hear too much, but thank God for healing. So she's healed. She's just meeting the Lord in that revival. And then she said this, my mother, by the way, she used to sing Under the Blood, which is an old hymn, so much that we had an old parrot, and he sang Under the Blood. Isn't that nice? What was going on there? They went to the revival, they learned a beautiful hymn, Under the Blood, they went home, and then the mother is washing dishes, she's singing this hymn. The mother is eating, she's doing chores around the house, she's going in and out of the house, she's singing Under the Blood so much that what happens? The parrot learns it. And then Maddie Cummings learns it. And then she gets interviewed for some newscaster 60 years later, and she can still remember this hymn, Under the Blood, that matters so much that we as parents in our homes were singing. And even if we're not parents in our homes, we're singing. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. Maddie Cummings said this about the Sunday school at Azusa Street. She said, the children loved it, found in church and just enjoy the service like any of the older people. They sat with their parents and we all sat together. So she's calling for family worship in the church and she's seeing that it has effects in the home. The emphasis of her testimony is this, the children got saved because the parents were actually saved. The children had joy because the parents had joy. And then the children learned to sing because the parents were singing at home. What am I trying to impress upon us? We sing at church and then we go home and we sing at home. And then our children are listening and they come to learn about the Lord through it. Even through a parrot who might learn a beautiful hymn. Y'all should learn that hymn too, Under the Blood, the precious blood, under the blood, the precious blood. Final point, singing alone. Will you all turn with me to Psalm 59, Psalm 59, Psalm 59 verses 16 and 17. Psalm 59 verses 16 and 17. It says, But I will sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning. For thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing. For God is my defense and the God of my mercy. If we were to read the rest of this psalm, you'd find that there's a ton of evil going on in the first 15 verses here. The psalmist is compassed roundabout by trial, by evil, by difficult people. But in verse 16, he gives a resolution and he says, But I will sing of thy power. Now, look, we've been talking about singing in church and we've been talking about singing in the family and in the home. But finally, I have to tell you all, you have to sing when you're alone. You might say, no, I pray when I'm alone. No, when I'm alone, I just think to the Lord. That's not enough. The scriptures testify that when we're alone, we got to sing. The psalmist's resolution here, look at it. It's so beautiful. But I will sing. And what's he going to sing about? Of thy power. And go on. Yea, I will sing aloud. Oh, so here we might say, I'll just sing in my heart. But no, the psalmist is saying, gotta sing aloud. I will open my mouth. I will actually sing. Even if I'm not good at it, I will sing aloud. And then he says, of thy mercy in the morning. That's also precious. When should we sing? Right in the morning. First thing in the day, we ought to have a resolution that we're going to sing to the Lord. Let's focus on this for one moment. What does the psalmist resolve to sing about? Look at verse 16. I will sing of thy power. Why do we need to resolve to sing of God's power every day and in the morning? Because we always forget that He's powerful. And the world around us is telling us He's not that powerful. And our flesh will be telling us day in and day out, God's not that powerful. You're not going to have a breakthrough. Nothing is ever going to change. God is not powerful. So what do we need to resolve? I will sing of thy power. Are you all with me? We have to remind ourselves through song, Lord, you're powerful, immortal, invisible, God only wise. We have to sing of His power every day. And then what does he sing about? I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning. Why do we have to sing of His mercy? Because we all tend to forget that He's merciful. We tend to say God's going to save my parents. God's not going to save them. And then we tend to fall into workspace salvation. And we tend to say, I got to work myself into His presence. But we need to remind ourselves, I will sing aloud of thy mercy, thy mercy. God is merciful. God will save. God will show mercy to my loved ones. You all see that? The psalmist does this again in Psalm 62, verses 11 and 12. And if you look throughout the whole book of Psalms, you'll find him emphasizing over and over again, power and mercy, power and mercy. So we need to remind ourselves daily of that. And how do we do it? Through song. There might still be some here today who are saying, I don't sing when I'm alone. I'm lazy and I don't need to do that. If I can just get in three minutes of prayer, that's enough for me. I just want to leave you all with this exhortation. Please sing, not only when you're in church, not only when you're around your family, so you know you've got to look good for your family, or you've got to look good for your church, but sing when you're alone. Sing when you're alone. Let me give a few tips on how to sing when you're alone. And we'll end with this. First, have a hymnal. Does everyone here have a hymnal in their homes, in your prayer closet? How about in your car? Keep one in your car so that you got a little break at work and you take a few moments and you sing to the Lord. Get a hymnal, get a little tiny one, put it in your bag. We all need one. We all have to be singing. And then this, sing straight from the Bible. If you can't find your hymnal, you can sing straight from the Bible. Look at verse 16. You can go like this, but I will sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning. Isn't that beautiful? Okay, but look what I did there. You can take like three notes. Mary had a little lamb, right? Just find three notes that you can sing and you can sing right out of your Bible. But I will sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy. And you'll notice that children, they perk their ears when you sing like that. I can read to Shiloh, I've noticed. And he'll look around. He'll notice that I have a different tone than when I'm just talking to him, if I read from the Bible. But if I start to sing from the Bible, he'll go, and he'll really look and it's amazing. He'll be listening. So that's my super advanced advice to all of you. Get a hymnal. And if you don't have one, sing straight from your Bibles like that. One final story. I had a very dear friend up in Toronto and he had a horrible voice. But he would work to find the root of every hymn and he'd just sing that one note the whole time we were singing. And he'd sing it loud and it was beautiful. So if you're imagining, holy, holy, holy, like that, right? He would just go, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And that's fine. If you don't have a good voice, if you can't follow all those things, just find that first note and stay there and sing your guts out. Amen. I want to give you this lyric one more time. Think about this. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? We have to sing together when we meet. We have to sing in the home. We have to fill our homes with praise. The voice of rejoicing is in the tabernacles of the righteous. Fill it. If you can't sing, turn on worship music. Fill those homes with praise. And then fill your prayer closets with praise. Sing alone. Sing in your car. Sing to the Lord, even if it's one note. In Brazil, they have a song called the One Note Samba. Sing the One Note Samba. I don't care, but sing. Sing to God. How can we keep from singing? Let's pray. Lord, please teach us to sing to you. Please teach us to sing heartily and, as John Wesley said, to sing lustily, Lord. Please teach your saints to sing. Lord, we don't want to have good voices. As Mack would always say, perfect worship is only going to happen in heaven. Lord, we're not looking to sound perfect or to be opera singers or something. We're looking, Lord, to glorify you, to give you our all, to sing our guts out because we love you, Lord. And I finally pray, Lord, that you would truly convict just the few of us who are here, Lord, that we would really go home and sing alone. It transforms everything. It sweetens everything. It gives such joy when we sing when no one else is watching. Lord, help each and every one of us to take this message home and to live it. We praise your name and we prepare our hearts now for the Lord's Supper. Amen. Amen. Let's all take a few moments just in silence and just reflect on what we've heard and how we could apply it to our lives.