Sing the Word

Sermon Summary / Transcript

In last Sunday’s sermon, Pastor Jason showed us that worship according to the word of God is biblical worship. The text was Colossians 3:16, which reads, “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.” 

Jason’s focus in this passage and for this sermon was singing, biblical singing that begins with God, honors God, and informs others about God.

1  Our singing begins with God. God’s people sing today because they have always been singers. We see it in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and even in the age to come when saints will sing a new song before the throne (Rev.14:3). In God’s word, singing is mentioned over 400 times and 50 of those are commands to sing. Clearly, God expects us to sing. When we receive the word of Christ and let it dwell in us richly, it has to come out as song, and our songs ascend to Heaven. Our singing begins and ends with God. 

2  Our singing honors God. To seek our own good through some subjective experience in worship is both unbiblical and unsatisfying. But if we seek God by praising and thanking him in song, the result is his glory and our good. In God’s great wisdom, he has done this. We cannot do better than setting ourselves aside to praise God for who he is and what he’s done. And what are we to do if we just aren’t feeling it? We worship. We bring a sacrifice of praise to God and throw ourselves on God’s objective truth. We are reminded of truth when we hear ourselves singing it, and his truth brings us joy.

3  Our singing informs others about God.  There is a “one another” in the center of Colossians 3:16. We are to teach and admonish one another with the word that dwells in us. We are to do this through singing. When we sing corporately, we tell truth to one another when the world would tell us otherwise. We encourage others by the truth we sing, and we’re encouraged ourselves by others as they sing it to us. We are joining each other as we sing, and not just those in the pews in front and behind us, but those who’ve gone ahead to be with Christ, the church triumphant!

God’s people sing because we have a great God to sing about. So may our songs be loud!