Why We Sing
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This week is Thanksgiving week, a holiday not shared in the rest of the world. Every year people seem to let Christmas jump ahead of Thanksgiving, but we are going to do our best to honor the spirit of the holiday. Thanksgiving is a time to pause and give thanks to God for his provision, his blessings, everything we enjoy. We come together every Sunday to express gratitude to our Father and this morning we will discuss why we sing.
Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
In the opening verses of this psalm, the psalmist calls the reader to sing as an expression of praise. The second line of verse one says “Praise is becoming of the upright.” Becoming means beautiful, delightful, or pleasing. Praise is good for your soul. Sometimes nothing is better for getting you out of a funk than turning your funk into praise.
Look at what is included in the expression of worship: music. This is not surprising for us. Every culture and every generation has music that defines them. Music puts feelings and emotions to words. The rhythms, tones, and beats have a way of moving your soul. Instrumentation is a key component to it all. In the psalm, it makes reference to a lyre, a harp-like instrument that has a series of strings. In this case, ten. There is a call to sing a new song, which does not always mean a song that has never been sung before. It can also mean the same words to a new arrangement. How many times have you heard your favorite hymn, and then you hear the same song in a new way and all of a sudden it takes on a life of its own? Sing a new song.
As we employ musical elements in our worship, both privately and publicly, we should do so skillfully and with a shout of joy. It is okay to get loud in church! If you are excited about what God is doing in your life, celebrate it! If you are still dumbfounded by the fact that God would send His Son to save you from yourself, celebrate it! Not everybody is as expressive of others, but there are some who think quietness is reverence. You can be reverent and expressive at the same time. When what God has done moves you, express it. When the music moves you, express it. Praise is the proper response to experiencing the blessings of God in your life.
Reason #1: We can rely on everything God says and does.
Reason #1: We can rely on everything God says and does.
The next two verses declare the truth that God can be depended on.
For the word of the Lord is upright,
And all His work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.
We spoke last week about the unchanging nature of God and how that differed from every other god in the Ancient Near East. The gods of the Gentiles could not be depended on in part because there was no personal relationship to those gods. One would never know what mood he would find his god in and how that god’s mood or attitude might affect the request of the worshipper. The reality is they did this all in vain anyway because none of those gods actually exist. But our God does not change.
He loves righteousness and justice because it is the very core of who he is. God can judge rightly because he is justice. God can act righteously because he is righteousness. God is the standard for all things moral. He is morality. The scriptures testify to the fact that God does not lie.
“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
In his salutation to his letter to Titus, his disciple, the Apostle Paul writes:
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,
Then in the book of Hebrews, the author writes:
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.”
And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.
For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.
In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
God does not lie. When he makes a promise, he will keep it. The first reason why we sing is because we can rely on everything God says and does.
What promise has God made that you need to put your trust in?
Reason #2: God maintains sovereign control over creation.
Reason #2: God maintains sovereign control over creation.
In the next few verses, the psalm speaks of God’s word as it pertains to creation.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.
This language is reminiscent of Genesis chapter one, which reveals the first things about God we can know. God is a speaking God. He spoke the universe into existence. Forces and elements we still don’t understand were spoken into being from His mouth. God is a powerful God. No one has the power to speak things into existence from nothing. God spoke the heavens into existence on the second day. He gathered the water into seas on the third day.
God has not let go of control over His creation either. There is a view called Deism, which says God created the world, but then stepped away and is uninvolved with creation’s affairs. In that religion, God is unapproachable because He is not personal. This is not the God of the Bible.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Again, speaking of Jesus, the author of Hebrews writes,
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
God is a personal and speaking God. His power is unparalleled.
For this reason, we should fear Him. We should not be afraid of Him if we are His children, but we should ever be in awe of who He is. We should never lose that sense of wonder. Can you remember when you were a kid and you had that sense of awe and wonder the first time you experienced something? The other night, we turned our Christmas tree on for the first time and Christy just stopped and stared for a minute. I was in awe as I watched a little girl take in the sight of a lit Christmas tree and I watched the reflections of hundreds of little lights in her eyes.
We sing because God has not abandoned His creation. He maintains sovereign control over it.
Are you still in awe of who God is and what he has done? What about God leaves you speechless?
Reason #3: God’s plans can never be thwarted.
Reason #3: God’s plans can never be thwarted.
The next verses state:
The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations;
He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart from generation to generation.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
It may not seem like things are going according to God’s plan. It may seem like things are going in the direction they should go in. We are finite creatures who cannot comprehend an infinite God. One thing we can know for sure is that there are two sides to this long standing battle between good and evil. If you set your plans against God, you will lose. Kingdoms of the earth have come and gone. God’s plan has not gone anywhere. We may not always know what that is, but we can trust that because he does not lie and he maintains sovereign control over his creation, his plans will come to fruition.
Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”
He who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.
Anyone who sets their plans against God is doomed to fail.
This should give us confidence as his children that if we are fixing our eyes on him, seeking first his kingdom, his righteousness, then your life will head in the direction he intends. You may feel like you have no chances left. You may feel like you have outrun God’s mercy. I want to tell you that is a lie. God’s plan cannot be thwarted.
Do you know God’s plan for your life? Are you seeking his plan? What do you need to do to set your plans in alignment with his?
Reason #4: The God who made us is our salvation.
Reason #4: The God who made us is our salvation.
Look at verses 13-17:
The Lord looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men;
From His dwelling place He looks out
On all the inhabitants of the earth,
He who fashions the hearts of them all,
He who understands all their works.
The king is not saved by a mighty army;
A warrior is not delivered by great strength.
A horse is a false hope for victory;
Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.
First, notice that God is the one who has fashioned the hearts of all people. The heart is a substitute for the whole. God made our hearts and our entire being. He sees us all. God has never not taken notice of you.
Everyone instinctively knows they need rescue. Not one person has had a trouble-less life. The question is where does one look for deliverance? If we look to military might, we will not find it. If we seek to be saved by our own strength, we will not make it.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Salvation comes not from our own doing, it is God’s doing. The God who made us, the God who sees us, is the God who redeems us.
What are you trusting in? Are you trusting in your own goodness, or the work of God through Christ for you?
Reason #5: God cares and provides for his covenant people.
Reason #5: God cares and provides for his covenant people.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
The word lovingkindness refers to God’s covenant love for his people. Those who are in awe of who he is hope for his lovingkindness. We look to God to deliver us from death. Not just from physical death, but eternal death. Rejecting him leads to permanent severance of a relationship with him. We look to God for hope of the eternal life he promised. The hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus can rise from the dead, maybe we can too. That’s exactly what the Bible teaches us.
But even while we are alive we hope that our fidelity to him will carry us through the toughest seasons in our lives. We learned last week we will always be provided for if we will seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. In times that are tough we are looking for the strength to endure, but that strength does not come from ourselves. God gives it to us as we submit ourselves to his authority over our lives.
Are you experiencing the sustaining power of God in your life during a difficult season? How can you praise him for that this week?
The final three verses are a response. The psalm is bookended with praise. The first three verses call the people to praise. The final three verses call us to respond to the reasons why we sing.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart rejoices in Him,
Because we trust in His holy name.
Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us,
According as we have hoped in You.
Acknowledge God for who he is. He is our help and our shield. We rejoice in him because we can rely on everything he says and does. He maintains sovereign control over creation. His plans can never be thwarted. He is our salvation. He cares for us as his covenant people. Put your hope in God.