Saved to Sing to the Lord
Notes
Transcript
OPENING ILLUSTRATION
“The story of the ham”
Wife cooking ham, trims off 1” from each end.
Husband asks why… “That’s a waste of good ham!”
Wife doesn’t know why, “That’s what my mom used to do.”
Husband asks why she did it.
The wife doesn’t know.
Let’s call her and find out.
Wife asks mother, “Why did you cut the ends off the ham?”
Mother responds “I did it that way because my mom did it. I just assumed it was the right way to do it.”
Determined to get to the bottom of it, they call the grandma.
“Why did you cut off the ends of the ham?”
“I couldn’t afford a baking pan big enough to fit the whole ham, so I had to cut the ends off.”
They all couldn’t help but laugh, realizing that this tradition had gotten passed down through the generations without anyone truly understanding the original purpose.
TRANSITION TO SERMON
Last week Pastor Jake asked the question…
What are We Saved For?
What are We Saved For?
We tend to have a selfish view about what God does for us… we focus on what we have been saved FROM.
The question we should be asking is, “What we have been saved FOR?”
Pastor Jake showed us that everything that we have is from God, and we owe everything back to Him.
God has put us here for His glory, saved us for His glory, and is sustaining us for His glory.
God had successfully delievered His people from slavery,
and over the next few weeks as we look at the next few chapters in Exodus,
we are going to see what God saves His people FOR.
This morning we are going to see that we are:
Saved to Sing to the Lord
Saved to Sing to the Lord
Have you ever thought… “Why do we as Christians sing?”
You can go to any church throughout the world and there will be singing.
It doesn’t matter what culture, what denomination, what colour of their skin… we all sing. Why?
Because… singing is A WAY for us to express worship to God.
We tend to think worship and singing are the same thing. To worship means to sing, and to sing means to worship.
It is true that singing is worship, but singing is not the definition of worship.
To worship God is: to declare His worth; to show Him honour, and reverence as God of the universe; to declare the truth of who He is.
So we can worship Him in many ways:
By reading His Word we worship by acknowledging God’s Word is authoritative for our lives.
By obeying His Word we worship by submitting to God’s Word.
By singing we worship by declaring the truth of who God is.
By praying we worship by recognizing our need and dependance on God.
By sharing the gospel we worship by teaching others that Jesus is the only way to be saved.
We could talk about many other ways in which we worship, but my point is simply that singing is not the ONLY way to worship. It is one way for us to express our worship to God.
But where did singing come from? Where did it originate?
In the book of Job we read of singing that took place during creation.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
The angels were singing and praising God for His work in creation!
In the book of Genesis we find the first mention of music…
His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.
Very early on in creation, people began making music.
Music is a special and unique gift given to us by God.
Music is a powerful way of expressing truth.
Music engages our emotions.
Music is memorable.
Music is instructive.
Music is healing for the soul.
You will remember that Israel has just been delivered from Exodus by way of 10 plagues by the mighty hand of God.
As they went out from Egypt, God led them to the Red Sea, where His power and glory would be on display one final time over the Egyptians and their gods.
As the Israelites stood at the brink of the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army coming after them from behind, the Lord parted the Red Sea, making a pathway for His people to cross over.
The Egyptian army pursued them, but God brought back the waters and killed every one of them.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
What happens next in Exodus 15, is the first time the Bible records God’s people singing His praise.
We’ve already seen that instruments and music had already been created, so we might assume that worship had been taking place up to this point, but it is the first time the Bible records a worship song sung by God’s people.
This would be the first of many songs that God’s people would write and sing together as His chosen people.
This is one of the reasons God saved them… to sing His praise!
This tradition of worship has continued right up to this day, and it will continue all through eternity, as we sing the praise of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
One of the things that brings me the most joy is to worship with you all.
I love that we are a singing church!
You all sing loudly, and passionately to Your Saviour!
That’s our goal as a music ministry… to lead songs in a way that draws our hearts together to praise God.
And nothing excites us more than to hear your voices.
We sing about things that are meaningful to us, and what could be more meaningful than the precious blood of Christ poured out for guilty sinners to be washed clean, and made righteous!
And so we have been, “Saved to Sing to the Lord.”
This morning we are going to go through this song that the Israelites sang and
learn biblical principles for how we should think about our singing.
I have 5 points that I want us to consider from the text this morning.
The first one is…
Our Singing is about God
Our Singing is about God
There is a tendancy in music, including Christian music, to be man-centered.
For us to sing about how we relate to God is not inherently wrong. On the contrary… next we are going to see that our singing is intricately connected to our experience… BUT… we are not the FOCUS.
God is the focus! Therefore, our singing is primarily about God.
His salvation…
His holiness…
His power and majesty…
Let’s read…
HIGHLIGHT
HIGHLIGHT
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. 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. The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters. “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
God had saved His people with a strong and mighty hand.
They were lost, and without any hope of saving themselves apart from God, but He delivered them while destroying their enemies.
In light of this, His people praise Him, worship Him, and write this song about His salvation.
God is the focus of the song!
It is His power that is praised… His greatness that is honoured.
The Israelites did not praise themselves, or any part they played.
They recognized that they were as good as dead if God did not save them!
Therefore they praise God for His deliverance.
God is the focus!
APPLY
APPLY
As NT Christians who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, we too have been saved by God!
Just as the Israelites were pinned between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, we were pinned between our sin and death.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way.
Our sin leads us down the path to ultimate destruction.
We know that if we were to die in our sin we would face eternity apart from God in hell.
But God, being rich in mercy, saved us!
Why? Because we were better than anyone else? No! Not at all!
We were sinners, completely undeserving of His grace.
What is our response…
Our response to God’s salvation is worship!
Our response to God’s salvation is worship!
This is instinctive to us.
Whenever we experience anything exciting in our lives, we are eager to celebrate it and want to share it with others.
What could possibly be more exciting than having been raised from the dead and given new life?
RESPOND
RESPOND
This morning we sang a new song called:
How Great (Psalm 145)
Verse 1
I'll bless Your name O God each day that I awake
From dawn to setting sun Your greatness I'll proclaim
Your glory far exceeds all human thought
So with each breath I'll bless Your name O God
As God’s chosen people, who have been saved from slavery and bondage to sin and death, we sing His praise!
And our singing is distinct from that of the world in that it is about God.
Since our singing is about God, we want to sing what is true about God.
So my desire as the overseer of the music ministry here at LEMC is to find songs that are biblically rich.
If we are going to sing songs about God, they must be true, and the only way we can know they are true is if they are founded on the truth of God’s Word.
TRANSITION
“Our Singing is about God”, but it is also true that…
Our Singing is Connected to Experience
Our Singing is Connected to Experience
The focus of our singing and our worship is God, but that does not mean that it is removed from our personal experience.
If we only worship God without connecting it to our experience,
then it would be easy to forget that He is a personal God who loves and cares for His people… and
we might think that God is removed from our personal experience.
We can see from this passage that is not the case…
HIGHLIGHT
HIGHLIGHT
Exodus 15:1–3 (ESV)
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
The Israelites are not worshiping some God they have never met or experienced before.
They are worshiping a God who has personally delivered them with His strong and mighty hand!
God is the focus of their worship, but it is THEM that He has saved.
Therefore they sing… “This is MY God.”
The Israelites song of praise was uniquely tied to their experience of God’s salvation and deliverance.
His love for them was evidenced in the fact that He would come down personally and save them from the hand of the enemy.
APPLY
APPLY
This is exactly how God shows His love for us… Christ came down in order to redeem us!
So we sing of God’s salvation… we praise Him… He is the focus… but we connect it to our experience.
This is why we must continue to write new songs that bring glory to God, because…
New songs testify that God is still at work among His people.
New songs testify that God is still at work among His people.
If we only sang old songs, we might wrongly think that God is a God of the past… that He is not active anymore.
But as each new generation comes along, they testify to God’s power at work in their lives, and by doing so, declare that God is still at work… redeeming a people for Himself.
Now, in my next point, I’m going to show that we are connected to the past.
We are in a long chain of God’s people, connected through Him… so it’s important that we do not remove ourselves from those who have gone before us, but we also can’t live there either.
God is active and moving today, and so we must continue to proclaim His goodness in new and fresh ways.
Psalm 96:1—6 says…
Oh sing to the Lord a new song; 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 marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
As we experience God throughout our lives in new and fresh ways, we should desire to praise Him in new and fresh ways.
Now we need to be careful here, because we need to remember that the focus of our praise is God.
Our praise and worship needs to submit to the authority of Scripture.
Insofar as our singing is biblical and true, we can, and SHOULD, praise God for His active work in new and fresh ways.
Think of the Israelites and this monumental occasion.
The desperation of being trapped by the Sea with the Egyptian army closing in…
The Sea parting, with the waters being a wall on either side of them as they walked through to the other side…
The waters closing on and killing the entire Egyptian army…
No song of the past was going to do in praising God for this mighty victory!
They needed a new song to praise God that was connected to their experience of His salvation.
RESPOND
RESPOND
God is going to be at work in every generation that comes after us, and they are going to experience the overwhelming joy of having their sins washed clean.
As they experience God’s goodness, they are going to want to sing His praise!
It should bring us joy as believers to hear new songs of praise to our glorious heavenly Father!
New songs are also a breathe of fresh air into our Christian lives.
I read a quote this week that said…
“There is no worship without awe and wonder. And the biggest robber of our awe and wonder is familiarity. I don’t ever want to become so “familiar” with the story of how Jesus came into this world that I cease to stand in awe and wonder.”
“Amazing Grace” is an incredible song of God’s grace toward us, but if we sang it every week here at church, it would become so familiar to us that we wouldn’t even be moved by the truth of the song anymore.
But when we hear a new song that speaks the same truth that we know in a new way we have not heard before, it blesses our soul, and we become captivated once again with the truth of God’s love for us.
So each generation should be looking for new and fresh ways to sing to God as they experience His salvation, because our singing is connected to experience.
TRANSITION
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that…
Our Singing is Connected to Past Generations
Our Singing is Connected to Past Generations
I was born in 1988, and that year Oldsmobile launched an ad campaign to attract younger buyers.
Their slogan was, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
The goal was to appeal to the next generation of vehicle owners by highlighting new features.
Over the last 30+ years this has become a popular phrase. You will commonly hear this sort of phrase used in advertising or conversation...
“this is not your mother’s vaccuum” or “this is not your father’s drill set”.
This is a way of emphasizing the something has changed significantly or deviated from what one might expect based on past experiences or traditional norms.
It signifies a departure from tradition… a departure from what was familiar or expected in the past.
This is not true for us as God’s people. We are connected to past generations through an unchanging, eternal God.
This includes our singing.
Through remembering God’s past faithfulness to previous generations, we are reminded that we are a small blipp along the timeline of God’s story of redemption.
HIGHLIGHT
HIGHLIGHT
Exodus 15:2 (ESV)
The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
We just talked about how our singing is connected to experience.
The Israelites sang a new song to the Lord to honour His salvation.
But just because God saved them in this dramatic way does not mean that they are disconnected and somehow more special than previous generations.
The Israelites understood that this was all a part of God’s plan which He initiated when He called Abram in Genesis 12:1-3.
This was a part of God’s plan of redemption, and was a reminder of His faithfulness to previous generations.
This gave the people confidence in God.
If He has been faithful to our forefathers through the promises He gave them long ago, He will be faithful to us!
So the Israelites recognize that as God’s people, they stand in a long line of generations that have gone before them.
So as they sing their worship to God, it is connected to those past generations.
APPLY
APPLY
We too stand in a long line of believers who have gone before us.
We must avoid the tendancy to focus only on ourselves.
Our worship must reflect our eternal God, who is outside of time.
Our worship must reflect our eternal God, who is outside of time.
He has led many generations before us…
He will lead many generations after us…
until the new heavens and new earth where we will all worship Him.
Every generation… together… lifting praise and worship to our eternal God!
RESPOND
RESPOND
Since we look forward to such a day, our singing in the hear and now must be connected to past generations.
One way we do this is by continuing to sing hymns.
These are the songs of a previous generation… songs that were meaningful to them as they came to know and love Jesus their Saviour.
If we stop singing these songs, we are cutting off the connection we have to the past.
The new songs we write must also connect us to the past as well.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
He is the Saviour who deserves praise throughout every generation.
TRANSITION
“Our singing is about God”
“Our singing is connected to experience and past generations”
Our next point is that…
Our Singing Looks Ahead
Our Singing Looks Ahead
We do sing about God’s salvation in our present experiences, but we don’t stop there. There is a future that we hope and long for.
HIGHLIGHT
HIGHLIGHT
“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever.”
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
The Israelites had been saved by God, delivered from the hand of their enemies, and so they praise Him for His victory.
But they knew this was not the ultimate fulfilment of God’s plans for them.
God had promised to give them their own land, and dwell among them as their God.
And so they sing of their future hope… when they will dwell in the fulfilment of the promise as the Lord’s people.
This is a theological concept commonly referred to as:
“Already but Not Yet”
“Already but Not Yet”
This concept helps us distinguish between what has taken place, and what is to come.
For the Israelites, they were ALREADY God’s people.
Set apart through His deliverance,
and yet, they have NOT YET fully experienced the fullness of His promises.
This understanding makes it’s way into their singing, as they long for a future yet to come.
ILLUSTRATE
ILLUSTRATE
My wife and I are coming up on our 14th wedding anniversary.
I remember the day we got engaged.
We were playing the 9th hole at Orchard View Golf Course, and I snuck the ring in the hole as she walked to the other side of the green.
After putting her ball in the hole, she walked over and was incredibly excited to find the ring along with her ball.
In that moment we rejoiced together as that ring was a promise of a future hope that would become a reality.
If you’re married or engaged, maybe you remember the day you got engaged.
That ring already symbolized your love and commitment to one another in the present... and yet,
there was a deeper, more intimate connection to be enjoyed after the wedding day.
There was a NOT YET present reality that was to come in the future.
RESPOND
RESPOND
This is what our hope in Christ looks like.
We are ALREADY his people… His possession… saved by His grace… holy, spotless, and blameless in His sight.
But we are NOT YET experiencing the fullness of His promise, as we look forward to a day when:
all wrongs will be made right…
all sickness will be gone…
and we will dwell in perfect holiness and unity with our Lord and Saviour forever,
as we praise Him and enjoy His presence for all eternity!
But for now, in our singing, we praise God for His promise of a future reality that is yet to be realized.
And we wait with expectant hope!
TRANSITION
Our final point is that…
Our Singing is Passionate
Our Singing is Passionate
So far we have talked about all of the elements of our singing.
It’s about God…
It’s connected to our experience and past generations… and
It looks ahead to our glorious hope.
But now we see the attitude that should accompany our singing.
It should be passionate!
HIGHLIGHT
HIGHLIGHT
For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
The Israelites passionately worship God!
It is the women that are described here as passionately worshiping God, but that doesn’t mean that women are the only ones allowed to passionately worship God.
When the ark was being brought back into Jerusalem…
And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.
His heart was moved to passionate worship.
The Psalms are the song book of Israel, and it is packed with instructions to passionately worship God.
Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
When you think about it, this is instinctive to human nature.
ILLUSTRATE
ILLUSTRATE
If you go to a sporting event and your team scores or makes a big play…
If you go to a concert and the band comes on stage…
If you watch a movie or a play…
Even in simpler moments of catching a fish, or shooting that buck…
In all of these moments it is instinctive to
raise your hands...
shout…
clap…
jump up and down…
In those moments, you are physically expressing the joy in your heart.
When our hearts are stirred, our bodies instinctively respond.
When our hearts are stirred, our bodies instinctively respond.
APPLY
APPLY
If we truly believe that God has been gracious and merciful in saving us… that we truly were destined for hell… dead in our sin… lost without hope before Jesus saved us…
then how could we NOT sing passionately?
Imagine singing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” (while yawning, looking at your watch, looking around, checking phone, completely uninterested.)
What God desires is worship that naturally pours out.
When our hearts are stirred by what Christ has done for us, our bodies should instinctively respond.
When our hearts are stirred by what Christ has done for us, our bodies should instinctively respond.
We were made to worship… to get excited… to cheer and clap and shout.
This is the normal human response to what excites us.
RESPOND
RESPOND
Maybe you struggle to feel comfortable to do that.
Maybe you feel like a hypocrite.
Maybe you care too much what others will think of you.
Eugene Peterson Quote
“You can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; It is a simple motor movement. You may not be able to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise.”
Lifting your hands doesn’t make you more holy…
it doesn’t make God love you more…
but it helps give full expression of our gratefulness to God for His grace and mercy toward us.
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Our desire should be to praise God to our fullest, because His greatness is far above anything in this world.
And though He is great, He has revealed His grace to us…
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.