Why We Sing...

Why We Sing

Psalm 92


Have you ever found out about something…
• Then because of some pre-conceived thought, you had in your mind how that particular thing would look like or feel like…
• Then when you actually experienced that certain thing it was nothing like what you had thought it was…
• You totally felt out of place – in the dark
• You felt like an outcast
• You didn’t really realize what was going on and why it was happening…

As a leader of a ministry I am always asking myself, what does what we do look like to someone…
• Who has never been here before?
• Better yet, who is not a Christian?
• Better yet…who has never grown up in Church?

And I try to see what we do (Christianity or following Christ) through their eyes…

And so I want to talk about a few disciplines of a believer…
• What we do THAT…
• Why we do whatever THAT is…

FIRST…why we sing…

I want to start with this because this is the first thing that hits people in the face…
• We come in here…
• We talk and visit…
• Grab something to eat…
• Get started by singing…

WHY?
• The start is the basis for what you do.
• How you start is very important…
• If you don’t start well in a race, you probably won’t finish well.
• If you don’t start well in a conversation with a female, more than likely you won’t finish at all!

Like the Bible…
• Starts with Genesis…
• It’s the foundation of who God is and who we are.
• It starts at the most logical place…the beginning!

So why do we start here?
• Why do we start what we do with singing?
• Is that the right way?
• Or because that is the way it has always been done…why we do it?
• Does it make sense to us?
• Does it make sense to every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks through the door?

Psalm 92 (NIV)
1 It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your Name, O Most High,
2 To proclaim your love in the morning, and your faithfulness at night,
3 To the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
4 For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.

Throughout the Bible in the Psalms there is this affirmation that it is “good to sing to God.”


I’m going to count to three and I want you all to shout out your favorite kind/style of music…1-2-3! ______ (Everyone shouts something different)
• Exactly – today we are going to talk about how we all AGREE!
• And how music is objective
• There is a right way and a wrong way
• There is a RIGHT style of music and music that is not worshipful…

Not going to happen…

And that really is not our goal…In church, what people “like” is not really our goal
• We are really interested in other things.

I’ve been here for 5 years and we essentially do the same thing…
• We come in here
• We eat some great groceries
• We sing
• Somebody speaks
• It’s over

We do this over and over and we’ve never really talked about what it is that we are doing…
• Why we Sing
• Not just WHAT

Before we begin with the WHY, we may want to start with the WHO…

In most groups of people there are essentially 2 different kinds of people
1. Those who love to sing
2. Those who do not love to sing

There is probably a third – people who cannot sing – you are in both camps and you are off the hook today…

To those who love to sing

Don’t be ashamed; just go for it.
• Every single week, we need your passion, your desire
• We need your voice

Every single week there are people here who really have to drag themselves here
• Asking them to muster up enough faith to sing praises when what they have going on in their lives is unbearable
• That may be asking too much
• For those people, you are their voice
• You are singing on their behalf
o You are singing when they cannot sing

As a person comes in here and they hear you sing
• They know you
• They know you are in the same place they are
• They know you are probably dealing with a lot of the same crud
• And they see you sing
• They can say to themselves, “if they are here and they are singing…maybe I can sing that too!”

Do you ever feel this way?
• I have
• We need your voice

And I want to apologize…
• For all those times you desperately wanted to go for it…and you just couldn’t
o You knew the stares you would get
o You knew the judgments that others might have on you
o You just could feel the glares coming at you before it ever happened
• I’m so sorry…
• Please don’t ever feel that way HERE!

For those of you who don’t LIKE to sing…

Let me say this…it’s ok. It’s ok.
• Why? Think about all the other places you gather with people you don’t know and sing songs together.
o Maybe at a birthday party
o Maybe during the 7th inning stretch
o It just doesn’t happen!

Imagine going to your favorite coffee shop and standing up and making an announcement…
• “Why don’t we just all sing a few songs together!”
• You would be put in a straightjacket and hauled off.
• All the British people who say to each other…”he’s a real Looney!”
• It would be weird!

I understand if you don’t want to sing…
• To be very honest, for many of us here there are times when we all don’t want to.
• But don’t be here and think those are the only two options…
• The only two options are NOT…
o To be fully engaged, going for it – you don’t care if people are looking at you or not…OR
o To be sitting down with your arms crossed thinking about all the homework you have to do this week or the girl over on the other side of the room…”what is she wearing?”
o Those are not the only two options…

Another option…

Have you ever been in a small group of people that we carrying on a conversation and they were talking about a certain thing…
• You never say a word
• You don’t open your mouth
• But you are fully engaged in what they are talking about
• You feel a part of the conversation even without speaking…

Singing can be just like that…
• You can be fully engaged without ever opening your mouth

Because…Singing is NOT the point

Being a part of a shared experience is the point…

Sometimes I just get so caught up in the words, and the beautiful picture it paints of Christ and I just say “Thank you!”

Sometimes I have to pray my version of the prayer of Theresa of Abola prayed, “Lord, I don’t want to love You. But I want to want to love You!”

Sometimes you may just have to approach singing like, “I don’t want to sing. But I want to want to sing!”


We sing a wide variety of songs…
• We sing songs that were written last month
• We sing songs that were written from the first Century
• We sing Psalms from the Bible that are 3,000 years old

So historically, we have intentionally set out to sing songs from across the spectrum.

We sing songs from a vast array of writers…from all over the world.

We sing songs that are wide in depth and shallow in depth.

We sing songs that are TO God and we sing songs that are ABOUT God.

We somehow tap into many different experiences of Christian worship from across the ages.

So we beg, borrow and steal from many time periods and many brothers and sisters from all across the ages.

These songs are very different…

1. Those with Enthronement Language

These songs sing about robes, gifts, Kings
• This is not a world that we are familiar with

“Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne…bring forth the royal Diadem”

Majesty, Splendor, Honor

These songs come from a time period where all these things meant something at that particular time…

When Kings and Queens, and servants and land division…
• That is how they thought of the world

So when they thought of their God…
• The most majestic and prestigious thing they could think of would be a King on a Throne…
• And when they wrote these songs they used language that people during this time period could relate to…

2. Those Songs with an Unknown Order of the Universe

A time period when people had no technology
• They had no telescope
• They had no space travel
• They had no satellite imagery
• They had no long telephoto lenses
• They just had ideas about what was out there…

They would just look out at the sun, moon and stars…
• That was the extent at which they could grasp the Heavens
• Looking with their own two eyes was the only way to get an idea of where God was and how Big God was…

And if I am Caveman Joe living under a rock…
• I need this plant to survive because I am a horrible rock thrower
• I can’t kill anything for my food
• So I eat this certain plant that grows by the river
• And it’s not long before I realize that this plant needs the light from the sun and the rain from the sky to grow…
• Over time I realize that good comes from up! It comes from the sky. It comes from above.

It also didn’t take people a lot of thinking to figure out that when a person dies, we bury them down…
• We bury them in the earth

So the thinking developed very early in cultures and you can see this from the writing on the walls of caves and in the Old Testament…
• Good (life), in some way, comes from up…
• Bad (death), in some way, comes from down…

And over time a three-fold view of the universe developed…
1. In the sky – the Heavens
2. The earth
3. Below – Hebrews called “Sheol”, the later Greeks called it “Hades”

Now you and I know that if we were to take a spaceship up above the earth into the Atmosphere…
• We would not run into a place where everyone is playing Harps
• We would not see any streets of gold
• We wouldn’t have to stop at St. Peter’s gate in order to get a pass to go to the moon

And if we were to take a trip DOWN…
• You and I both know that we would not run into a guy in red spandex with horns and a pitchfork quoting Marilyn Manson lyrics

We do not live in a world with generally a 3-tiered view of the universe.

Think about “light of the world, you stepped down into darkness…”

• That is 3-tiered language.

• But, even knowing what we do today, we STILL sing the same songs today.

3. THEN…we sing songs with different scales and melodies than what we are used to…

Most of the new songs today (except what Crowder writes) are based on 3 chords with maybe a minor chord thrown in.

But many of the old hymns written long ago had varied time signatures, chord progressions, etc.

Compare – “Here I am to Worship” or “Come, Now is the Time to Worship” to the “Doxology” or “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”

Very different!

So…

1. We sing songs with enthronement language
2. Songs with a different view of how the universe is set up
3. Different melodies and patterns than what we are used to…

Why?

If you take all the magazines and look at the covers, what will all the covers on the magazines be?
• Different
• This week it may be Tiger Woods or SuperBowl or Biggest Loser
• Next week – Lane Kiffin is a loser, Bassmasters Classic, How to cook with Rachel Ray
• The next week – John and Kate get back together

We live in a world in which we are bombarded with the NOW…
• With the temporary
• With what is happening at THIS very moment…

And one statistic says that we hear or see over 3,500 advertisements a DAY…

It is very easy to get sucked into thinking…”all we have is THIS moment…”


AND

For 1,000’s of years people have realized that there is MORE…
• More than we can see
• More to this life than just you and me
• More than just RIGHT NOW

And each week we get together we come together and celebrate this MORE…
• Pointing to the center of everything
• Realizing that the earth and everything in it does NOT revolve around me
• And it does not revolve around you

There are profound psychological advantages to constantly reminding ourselves that…
• My will
• My needs
• My desires
• My ego
…is NOT the center of the Universe.

When we are burdened down with stresses and worries…the power of gathering in a room and being reminded that for 1,000’s and 1,000’s and 1,000’s of years, human beings have trusted that there is a God…
• Who can carry them
• Who can protect them
• Who will take their burdens and their worries and their stresses
• And take all of that off of their shoulders
• So we don’t have to carry that around

So when we come in here and we engage in singing…
• And people may say, “I didn’t like that song…”
• Or “I love that song…”

…we are interested in something so much more significant, more transcendent and more historical…

We get together and the very first thing we do is put ourselves in our place…

How many of you need that every single week?

This at one time was a very cultural trap in American churches…
• You like Southern Gospel? We will have an ol’ time Gospel singing service…
• You like Contemporary music? We will have a contemporary service…
• You like it all? We will throw it into a mosh pit and mix it up and offer it to you!
• You like it Heavy? We will turn it up LOUD!

But we try not to get involved in that cultural trap…
• We go for the reminder…
• There is MORE…
• And the world does not revolve around each of us
• It revolves around a Holy God who inhabits our worship…

So when we sing…
• “I want to know you…I want to hear your voice…see Your face…”
• “Better is one day in YOUR courts than a thousand elsewhere!”
• “Rock of Ages…let me hide myself in THEE!”

We are creating SPACE in our lives for something MORE…
• …more than here and now
• Bigger than what we are

Putting things in order…
• Giving God His rightful place – 1st thing
• Putting ourselves in our place – 1st thing

So everything else after that will be in the right place…

God on His throne…We are singing His praise…And HE is completely welcome here…
• Fully present in our praise
• Speaking to us
• Alive in us

THAT’S Why We Sing!!!! Psalm 92