Congregational Praise

Building Blocks for Christ-Centered Churches  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Introduction

A recent study by Pew Research found that nearly 75% of Americans are “too busy” to enjoy life. How sad is that figure? Before you scoff, just think about how long it takes a car to honk at the car in front of them whenever a stop light turns green… maybe 2 seconds? We live in a busy world that seems to progressively grow busier by the season. One of the negative effects of being busy is that you tend to forget things. We get so busy that we forget things that we otherwise wouldn’t forget. In fact, you might be here this morning with a million things on your mind as you think about the coming week. Students, you might have homework that you’ve put off that needs to get done. Those in the work force, you might be staring at an incredibly busy week at your job. Maybe you’re looking at stress and busy schedules, and you’re wondering what benefit taking an hour or two out of your Sunday morning will have because of all of the other things you could be doing instead.
In the midst of a crazy world and a busy life, it is so important for us to pause as we’ve done already this morning, and remember the God that we serve. It’s estimated that the average adult takes 23,000 breaths a day and it is good for us to pause, take a breath, and evaluate where we’re at and why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why do we gather every Sunday as a church? Whenever a person comes up to you and asks, why do you go to South Gate? Why do you worship Jesus? What is your answer? This morning as we continue our series on Building Blocks for Christ-Centered Churches, we find the answer to this question in one of my favorite books and passages in the Bible, Ephesians 5:15-21. We’re reminded that whenever we gather for worship, we give God thanks for WHO He is and what He has done. We remember the importance of PRAISING Jesus Christ for saving us from our sins and bringing us into His forever family.
That’s why we praise Him… but how do we praise Him? This is where many churches and Christians disagree because of differences of opinions on styles and structures… after all, these discussions were called the Worship Wars just a few years ago! How are we called to worship Jesus? One individual last week said it like this, “I surrender all is one of my favorite hymns… and I think that is what we have to do here.” As we study from God’s Word this morning, we’re going to be reminded that a healthy church is a church that comes together and prioritizes prayer over preference and Scripture over society. Let’s slow down this morning, and stand together as a family on God’s Word.
Ephesians 5:15–21 CSB
15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— 16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: 19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
Isn’t it a blessing to get to gather with one another and speak to one another and make music with one another in a way that honors our Lord and Savior? Let’s practice Ephesians 5:20 right now and give God thanks for this opportunity to worship Him and study from His Word.
Ephesians is an incredible book that divides into two sections - the first 3 chapters tell us what God has done in saving us from our sins and making us alive in Christ. We see these rich truths throughout the first 3 chapters. Then, chapters 4-6 transition into a practical section of how we are to live in light of this newfound identity and status.
So, how does this impact not only us individually but corporately as a church? We are saved. We are changed. We live a life that glorifies Jesus. What is the big deal about praising God as a church family whenever we gather together? Let’s look at our text, first

Congregational Praise Exalts Jesus (15-17)

Right at the beginning of our passage, Paul says to pay careful attention to how you walk. To make the most of our time. To not live recklessly. Remember, this is addressed to believers - why would he feel the need to include these warnings? Because inside of each one of us as humans, there is a desire to give into temptation, to throw caution to the wind, to waste not only our time but our lives on things that don’t matter, to live recklessly! Why are these desires present? Here’s why: Deep down, in the depths of the human heart, is a desire to be praised. A desire not to bend the knee to worship, but to be worshipped. Isn’t this pride? We see this throughout Scripture and we especially see it throughout our world today as people want to be platformed, paraded around, and praised instead of praising the ONE who deserves all of our praise. Paul wants to caution these believers against giving in to these temptations and stumbling blocks and one way he does this is by reminding them to be careful how they’re walking. To be careful to examine what they’re saying and who they are praising. In Colossians 3:16, Paul gives another church the same warning
Colossians 3:16 CSB
16 Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
This is our instruction in God’s Word! To be a people who dwell on God’s Word. Who stand on God’s Word. Who study God’s Word. Who build our lives on God’s Word! South Gate Baptist Church, in the years to come, we will unwaveringly, unapologetically, and unashamedly dwell on God’s Word… and this doesn’t just include our life groups as we study God’s Word together with our incredible leaders and teachers, it doesn’t just include these 40 minutes as we study God’s Word together in our sermon, but it also includes what we sing. As Gordon Fee once shared, “Show me a church’s songs and I’ll show you their theology.” So many churches copy and paste the 5 most popular songs into their weekly service with no regard to the doctrine in the songs. Others are tempted to continue cycling through songs just because they’ve been used before with no evaluation of the doctrine of the song itself. This is why we have to be careful as to how we walk. As a pastor, this is why I’m convinced that I will be held accountable for the songs we do in corporate worship - because part of being a pastor is overseeing the ministry of the church and what we sing is a big deal! So, what do we sing? I’m not talking about style or preference, here, I’m talking about the songs that we use during worship - at South Gate, we will sing songs that exalt Jesus and are Christ-Centered and Scripture-Saturated, because this is what Jesus deserves and demands. God expects to be praised correctly.
Leviticus 10:1–2 CSB
1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his own firepan, put fire in it, placed incense on it, and presented unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them to do. 2 Then fire came from the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Can you imagine this scene? These are the sons of the high priest, Aaron and God had given them instructions on how to lead worship and we see that there is a consequence whenever those commands are violated. It’s not like the priests explicitly did something God forbid them to do. It’s not like God said DO NOT SING THIS SONG and they did it anyway… they simply added to what God had commanded them to do. The priests did something God did not command, and they died. Is anyone else thankful that Jesus Christ is our mediator and His blood covers us and forgives us? That’s good, but it doesn’t mean that suddenly God doesn’t care how He is worshiped by His people. Hear this: Worship that Exalts Man Grieves God. Many, many, many songs in our world focus so much on man to the point that God is often an afterthought. We hear words like “I” “My” and “We” being the driving force and theme of many songs atop Christian music charts and this leads to problems, because fundamentally worship is about Jesus, not us. It should exalt Jesus, not us. God’s desire is for us to focus on Him, not be foolish with our time, and understand His will and we find God’s will inside of God’s Word.
Primarily, worship is vertically about honoring and praising our God for who He is and what He has done.
This is why Paul says to pay careful attention - because we’re tempted to go wrong here. We’re tempted to think that the main reason that we gather for worship is ourselves. Our needs. Our preferences. In fact, one pastor compared the modern church to Walmart. Whenever you go to Walmart, you go to consume and pick and choose what you want. This is the seeker sensitive movement that exploded several years ago as people sadly tried to turn the church into a product your consumed instead of a family that expected its members to contribute. See, whenever we gather to worship Jesus, we don’t gather in order to consume and pick and choose… we gather to worship Jesus and contribute as we serve Him as a family. We don’t gather to worship self or society, we gather to worship our Savior!
This means that what God’s Word says takes priority over our personal preferences - we gather primarily to praise and exalt the name of Jesus! Our mission in the years to come is to gather together and praise the Lord because a Congregation that sing songs that are Christ-Centered and Scripture-Saturated exalts Jesus. We sing together because God’s Word demands it and Jesus deserves it! Congregational Praise Exalts Jesus Christ and it’s such a blessing to get to look forward to this occasion each week as we gather to lift our voices together, even though there are a million other things that we could be doing instead. We gather to stand on God’s Word and to submit to God’s will.

Congregational Praise Elicits Joy (18)

Think about the words happiness and joy for a minute. In our world, these words are often mistaken for being basically the same. But this isn’t necessarily the case. See, happiness comes and goes often depending on our circumstances. I’m happy when the St. Louis Cardinals win. I’m happy whenever I avoid rush hour traffic. I’m happy whenever my body cooperates. But what about when those circumstances flip? See, there are some Sundays that we wake up and we may not feel the best - have you ever had a Sunday like that? I know that I have! Your kids get sick on Saturday night. You miss your alarm. You forget something and you’re running behind. We’re upset, stressed, frustrated. We might not always be happy, but we can always have joy. See, we don’t gather and worship Jesus just because we feel like it. Just because we’re happy or because worship makes us feel happy. There will be times where we don’t feel like it. Here’s the good news - in the midst of fleeting feelings, there is a firm foundation that we can stand upon.
We are created to worship. Gathering with God’s people week in and week out is like food for our soul. Praising Jesus together provides us with a joy that this world does not know. We may not always feel happy, but as we remember who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and as we gather with one another and praise Him, we are reminded of the JOY that is present at all times. Look at verse 18 in our text as Paul encourages and reminds these believers to pay attention to what they’re doing, how they’re living, the way that they’re walking, and to remember that they must be filled with the Spirit.
How are we filled with the Spirit? This is a present tense command, so some take this to mean that you have to be “slain in the Spirit” or born again, again and again.
Galatians 5:22–23 CSB
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.
The fruit of the Spirit is self-control… not recklessness. Now, I’ve been in some congregations where if you raised a hand in worship, it was seen as reckless and out of place and I’ve seen other congregations where people are screaming and running in circles and reckless and call it the move of the Holy Spirit. Why would Paul say what he says here? What is the point? Why contrast drunkenness with being filled with the Spirit? Some come down on the tee-totaler side when it comes to drinking as a result of this passage and they read it like this, “Don’t drink wine… which leads to reckless living.” But that’s not what the text says and it’s not what Scripture says. The Bible never says don’t drink - it says don’t get drunk. This is a matter of Christian Liberty of which my conscience, to be blunt, is that I will never taste in the first place because I don’t want to sin if I can prevent it and I certainly don’t want to cause someone else to stumble into sin if I can prevent it. For me, this is 100% preventable - never taste in the first place. But, this is Christian Liberty and other Christians feel differently about drinking - Romans 14-15 talks about these areas of liberty. What is the Biblical line? Drunkenness. That is sin and there’s no way around that and as a pastor or as the Bible calls me, an elder, it says in 1 Timothy 3 that the pastor is to not be an excessive drinker - this is throughout Scripture.
But why here in Ephesians 5 is this contrasted with being filled with the Spirit. For one you’re filled with 2 separate things. For another, though, the people of Ephesus widely known for their worship of the Greek God Dionysus who was the god of wine. This culture loved wine, partying, drunkeness, reckless living, foolishness, and living as an unwise person… all the things Paul is cautioning against in our passage. So believers are to focus on being filled by the Holy Spirit and whenever that happens, you receive a joy that this world cannot take away.
Whenever you are filled with the Holy Spirit, we can say these Biblical truths: You are saved, sealed, and secured. These are just 3 of the blessings that we receive as Christians who are saved by grace through faith in Christ. If this is your reality, if you have experienced these truths, and you are melancholy, devoid of joy, and a slave to your ever-changing emotions, friend you need to be reminded of your salvation story. You were dead in sins, walking in darkness, a child under wrath. But you have been saved by grace through faith in Christ because of God’s mercy! You are sealed with the Holy Spirit and it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the strength to have joy at all times in this life, even when we might not feel happy or good. We remember and this leads us grow in our walk with the Lord as we study from His Word.
We worship for 2 key reasons
Worship is the Constant Activity of the Church in Heaven (Revelation 7:9-10)
Worship is the Chief Business of the Church on Earth (John 4:23)
We worship Jesus together and as we worship, we are filled with joy as we remember what our Savior has done and who we now are in Him. We fulfill what we were made to do in the first place! Singing and praising Jesus with your brothers and sisters in Christ should be a joyful time as, in choir terms, we rehearse in the earthly sanctuary to get ready for worship in the heavenly sanctuary one day!

Congregational Praise Encourages Us on Our Journey (19-21)

It’s a blessing to get to gather and sing with one another - even if you might not feel like you’re a good singer, we know that this is a powerful and special time together. We bond with one another and we express deep truths as we sing together. I’m reminded of the Missouri Baptist Convention back in October of 2019. We gathered in Branson as thousands of Missouri Baptists to celebrate what God was doing in our churches and part of that process included worshipping together. That particular week, we were blessed to have the Getty’s there to lead us in corporate worship - if you don’t know who the Getty’s are, they write some of the most beautiful and profound songs for churches just like ours to use during our worship services and their songs are grounded in Scripture. I’ll never forget that happened during one of our worship times as Keith Getty asked if we Missouri Baptists would want to learn a new song that was just about to be released called Christ Our Hope in Life and Death. This was October of 2019… what happened in March of 2020? COVID. A season of hopelessness. A season of loss. A season of death. Every time I hear that song and sing that song, I’m reminded of the hope of singing those deep Biblical truths alongside hundreds of friends for the first time before our world flipped upside down. Music is powerful… See, even after we leave a worship service, we might forget must of the sermon that we heard, but often we remember the truths that we sang. This gathering, and this time of praise matters!
As we think of music in terms of corporate worship, we know that this music is different. It’s not about performance. It’s not about being on platform. It’s not about a special, solo, production, or spotlight. It’s all about worship which means that it’s all about Jesus. As we sing as a church, it’s remarkable because 300 voices turn into 1. This encourages us and it unifies us and it glorifies Jesus… but for some reason, this time of corporate worship can quickly discourage rather than encourage. Our calling in Ephesians 5 is to understand what the Lord’s will is… when we fail to do this, we quickly think that worship is about me. My preferences. My traditions. My views. And when this happens, we fail to make the most of our time. In fact, if you read church history books and if you talk to other churches, you’ll discover that one of the leading reasons that churches have split is because of worship style. Because preference is prioritized above the Word. When this happens, instead of giving thanks to God for everything, we get upset with God about this one thing. We have to fight against this inner temptation by keeping our focus upward and remembering who Jesus is and what He has done and remembering that we’re worshipping Him as a unified body together. This is why Paul says to speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Not just one, but all 3. Not just the one we prefer, but all 3 because all 3 glorify God. What happens whenever the church does this? The Savior is Exalted and the Saint is Encouraged!
Can you think back to a time in your life where you were encouraged simply by gathering with your brothers and sisters in Christ and singing a song like Living Hope as we did last week? There have been seasons in my life where I’ve been in despair and I’ve gathered to worship with my church and we’ve sang It Is Well and that’s what I needed in that season. This is how the Lord works and this is what the body does - we encourage one another as Hebrews 10, instructs us to
Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB
24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
This happens whenever we are present for this gathering! Hebrews 10:25 is not telling us to come to church whenever we have the flu or else we need to feel guilty and bad about things - as a dad with 2 little boys who catch all the bugs, I get it! Hebrews 10:25 is reminding us of the importance of gathering together because if we stop, there comes a time in life where we stop missing this gathering. Many churches have seen this since COVID as millions of people in our country alone have stopped coming to church completely since COVID. See, whenever you don’t come, you can watch online and that’s a great resource for those moments, but it’s kind of when you’re sick and you can only eat saltine crackers… those get you bye for a little bit. But eventually, your stomach begins to growl and you require something more. Some folks try to fill themselves with crackers week after week, but that can’t satisfy us. Our hearts crave this gathering because we encourage one another with our presence and our voices whenever we give thanks to God as a church family!
Even as a family, we know that there are some differences. We see differences in our passage in verse 19 with Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. Why these different terms? The main idea is this: Every song that we sing in worship, regardless of style. Now, that word (style) is loaded because people have different views and opinions about what they like the most. Last year, I asked a question on Facebook that had two parts: What is your favorite worship song of all-time and what is your favorite worship song today?
I had over 100 comments and nearly 100 different songs mentioned. Some of the songs were hundreds of years old like Amazing Grace, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, and It Is Well. Other songs were a few decades old and others were written just a year or two ago! You will not find a pastor who loves to talk church music more than this guy - I love it. I’m thankful that this church loves to sing, but I’m more glad that this church loves to sing Godly music… not the latest Hillsong, Elevation, or Bethel song. Not necessarily old music or new music. But God honoring and Jesus glorifying music. At South Gate, there will be all sorts of styles and dates of music sung, but what matters most is that we sing theologically true and Christologically centered songs that glorify Jesus. Those are the standards we must use - not popular, not cool sounding, theologically true, Christologically centered. These are the songs that we sing… this is what Paul exhorts us to do, to speak to one another.
Have you noticed that sometimes this doesn’t happen? Maybe you think that your voice is awful and that because you’re supposed to make music with your heart, you don’t need to have anything come out of your mouth. You might not have a solo voice, but we all have a congregational voice! So often we focus on the outside, but God looks within. I remember being on praise team or playing bass guitar at FBC Ozark as a teenager and I saw this scene so often - a child is standing in service between mom and dad… mom is singing and praising Jesus and the kid is singing and praising Jesus… but then the child looks to dad, and dad is standing there like this with his mouth shut. What do you think the kid then did? The kid stopped singing too.
If you want to know the health of a church, listen to 4 crucial sounds:
Preaching of the Word
Bible pages turning in service
Babies making noise during service
Men singing during the service
I’m thankful to have had a dad in the pew - not on the platform - who modeled this week in and week out. Dad’s, your children need this! Your church needs this!
Men, if you can be this guy, what is preventing you from being that guy?
We must have more than these noises, but a healthy, Christ-Centered church will have these noises! We need these noises as we give thanks to God in everything. Is that challenging for anyone else? What is so important in this process? Remembering WHO God is - He doesn’t change. There is always reason to give God thanks simply because of His character and His work in saving us from our sins. There is always grounds for giving thanks whenever we remember who we were, and who we now are. This means that we have to believe rightly in order to worship rightly. Shallow theology leads to shallow preaching and shallow singing. We must dig deep into God’s Word and better understand what our God has done and as we do this, the deeper our faith grows, the deeper our worship goes, the more we hunger for God’s Word in preaching and teaching. We realize how much we need Jesus in the first place. Maybe you’re here this morning, and you see this final verse of submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, but you haven’t yet submitted to Christ. If you have not been changed by Jesus, if you have not been saved by Jesus, I trust you too see verse 16, that the days we are living in are in fact evil. Our world celebrates things that should not be celebrated! We see brokenness. Hopelessness. Heartache. Bitterness. Evil. Maybe you’re searching for an answer and you keep coming up empty - let me give you the solution, you need Jesus. It’s like you’re wandering through the desert, desperate for water and you continue to come up empty… Jesus is the Living Water that you thirst for. He alone provides you with what your soul needs. You need to see the situation that you’re in today is serious but it doesn’t have to be terminal. Though we live in a world of death, the Good News of Scripture is that Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, but to bring dead people to life. That’s why we praise Him. That’s why we study from His Word. That’s why we celebrate through song. If you have not yet done this, in a minute I’ll be standing down here and our team will lead us in a song of response and I’d love to pray with you and tell you what Jesus has done in my life.
If you are here and you’re a born-again believer like me, what does this text call upon us to do? Evaluate how you use those 23,000 breathes each day. We must pay attention to how we’re walking. We have to slow down and ask ourselves about our walk, our priorities, and our actions. Am I focused on self, or our Savior? Preference or praise? Tradition or text? Our only hope to live out Ephesians 5:15-21, is to practice Philippians 2:3.
Philippians 2:3 CSB
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
How can we do this? How can we praise Jesus Christ as He deserves today?
By Walking with Wisdom
By Walking with Understanding
By Walking with a Spirit-Soaked and Scripture-Saturated Life
One way that we do these things is by speaking to one another through song as we ultimately honor and glorify the Lord. Church, Jesus deserves our praise. He demands it. He is good. He is faithful. He is gracious. He is loving. He is our hope. He is our Savior. He fills us with His Spirit. Let’s be a church that is marked by consistent, congregational, Christ-Centered praise!
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