Untitled Sermon (6)

B. Songs that are Varied

1. Psalm

a. Divine songbook

the inspired hymnal, the infalliable worship booklet

Introduction to chapter 8- sing songs that are inspired… “things would have been so much simpler if God had anticipated the worship wars and just inspired a hymnal.”

He did, we just don’t bother to use it.

check hymnal for songs from the Psalms with them

So what is the psalms...

In Hebrew, the entire collection of Psalms is entitled “praises”. The rabbis of the NT era would designate it as “the Book of Praises”. Then some time later, during the time when the Bible was being translated into Greek, it was then labeled Psalms.

It’s interesting word choice by those that translated it into greek. The Greek verb from which the noun “psalms” comes from gives a close association with “the plucking or twanging of strings” so that when we see the word Psalms we would understand that music is to be accompanied with these words.

Psalms include:

wisdom, lament, penitential, royal or kingship, thanksgiving, praise, imprecatory (To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon or curse” one’s enemies)

b. Divine guidebook.

The Psalms show us that God welcomes a wide diversity in our songs. They can be short, long, or somewhere in between (Psalms 117; 119; 89). They can enable us to speak to God, others, or ourselves, sometimes in the same psalm (Psalms 86; 100; 62:5–7; 42). We have psalms about God and about us (Psalms 145; 133). And when it comes to first-person pronouns, Psalm 71 contains 58 of them in 24 verses. God gave us psalms that never repeat and others that say the same thing 26 times (Psalms 2; 136).

As you look at alot of the arguments about new music is that it is too repetitive or deals too much with the me issues. Putting down modern songs because there is an abundance of personal pronouns is wrong. The Psalms as our guide show us there is a place in our diet for that kind of music. He is my strength (Ps.28), my rock Ps.18), my Shepherd (Ps.23),my fortress, my deliverer, my rock, my shield, my horn of salvation, my stronghold, my God. That thought should captivate us. That we can call him mine.... Amazing grace is the example.

Some psalms explode with emotion, while others are more doctrinal (Psalms 150; 111). They give us words for rejoicing and reflecting (Psalms 47; 23). They tell us there’s a time to praise and a time to lament (Psalms 96; 38).

Not only do is there wide variety in Psalm but they also deal with a wide variety of human conditions and feelings. Sin (and how we feel about it), repentance, forgiveness, sickness, persecution, discouragement, want, grief, frustration, trials, troubles, loss, death, the afterlife, children, grandchildren, industry, learning, nature, providence, contentment, gratitude, redemption, law, grace, hope, peace, triumph, war, etc.

“The Psalms address, more comprehensively and incisively than any human hymnal ever has, the full range of human sentiments experienced in the life of faith. Israel sang about these things, and according to Paul, so should we. And if our hymnal does not look at least something like the Hebrew psalter, we probably should tinker with it a bit.”

“Christianity is rooted in the objective truths of what God has accomplished in the past. But is is also a personal and ongoing relationship with our God and Savior, every day. There are subjective elements to our faith, as well. The Christian walk isn’t “Just the facts, ma’am.” Its facts and faith. Facts and frustrations. Facts and failures. And yes, Facts and feelings.

Worship is- must be - experiential. Otherwise, no matter how carefully we choose our songs, our worship is dead. God is “wearied” by our letter-of-the-law offerings when they come from legalistic, idolatrous, and bored hearts.

That’s why Martin Luther loved this book more than other other book of the Bible and he was a passionate proclaimer of justification of Faith from the book of Romans. But the reliability and rawness of Psalms is so endearing.

So Psalms must be sung.

John Calvin so much believed in singing the Psalms that he only permitted Psalms to be sung in his church.

Though Calvin did alot of good for the church, he still missed marks. Singing only Psalms is one of those marks because scripture indicates that we are to sing more than just those inspired lyrics. Ephesians and Colossians instructs the believer to sing Psalms, but also hymns and spiritual songs. These of course were guided and governed by the patterns and principles laid out in the Psalms, but were encouragement to sing songs that were not necessarily divinely inspired. BTW, this is a strong argumentation for the purpose of writing new songs. Only the psalms were divinely inspired the rest are inspired by the truth in scripture but are nevertheless instructed in scripture to be sung as long as they are also guided and governed by truth. So use the Psalms to guide our practice of singing other songs.

2. Hymns

Referring to these the words, "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," Ralph Martin says,

It is hard to draw any hard-and-fast distinction between these terms; and modern scholars are agreed that the various terms are used loosely to cover the various forms of musical composition. "Psalms" may refer to Christian odes patterned on the Old Testament Psalter. "Hymns" would be longer compositions and there is evidence that some actual specimens of these hymns may be found in the New Testament itself. "Spiritual songs" refer to snatches of spontaneous praise which the inspiring Spirit placed on the lips of the enraptured worshipper, as 1 Corinthians 14:15 implies. (p. 47)

Paul’s audience in the book of Ephesians are Greek Christians who may not be as familiar with the Psalms as a Jew would be. However, when Paul speaks of hymns, he refers to a type of music Greek Christians would recognize. In pagan cultures, hymns were often used to eulogize their gods, while Christians would use hymns to exalt the name of Christ. In his commentary on Ephesians, New Testament scholar Harold Hoehner defines a hymn as “generally poetic material that is either recited or sung, many times in praise of divinity or in honor of one of the gods.” That’s similiar to what Scott Anoil found in his search.... “a common term in culture denoting poetic expression of praise to deity, an ode”.

We can apply that definition of a hymn to what Paul describes in Ephesians 5. He is not suggesting that we should be singing or reciting anything to anyone but the One True God. However, we can see that Paul is telling the Greek Christians that they can use songs from their culture to exalt the name of Christ and recognize the glory of God.

You might find that hard to believe but that was the practice of the early hymn writers. They would write lyrics and then find tunes and melodies to match the lyrics too.

John MacArthur further weighs on this...

Majority agree that hymns were commonly used for rehearsing doctrinal truth,

whereas the next category, spiritual songs, focuses more on believers personal responses to God.

3. Spiritual Songs

Ephesians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Consequence with Ourselves: Singing

Spiritual songs were probably songs of testimony that covered a broad category that included any music expressing spiritual truth.

Examples:

Ephesians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Consequence with Ourselves: Singing

In the church today we could classify renditions of Psalms 23 and 84 as psalms, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” and “The Old Rugged Cross” as hymns, and “O How He Loves You and Me” and “I’d Rather Have Jesus” as spiritual songs. The intent of the writer here, however, is simply to give latitude for all kinds of musical expression to exalt the Lord.

Why the need for variety...

Now there is a reason for different kinds of music. The main reason is that God is infinitely varied in his beauty and he relates to us in profoundly and wonderfully different ways. If you experience God in the death of your four daughters and your wife, in the sinking of a ship, you may write, "It Is Well with My Soul." If you are overwhelmed with the truth of the incarnation at Christmas time, you may write "Joy to the World." If God meets you simply and quietly in your prayer closet, you may write, "Father, I adore you, lay my life before you . . ." If you are stunned at the marvel that you are saved, you may write "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound . . ." If you area Sunday School teacher longing to teach your students profound things in simple ways, you may write, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . ."- Chris Anderson

John Piper

God meets us in high and holy ways. He meets us in lowly and meek ways. He meets us in thunderously glorious ways; he meets us in quiet, intimate ways. He meets us in complex ways and simple ways, furious ways and merciful ways. There are aspects of God's character and relation to us that can only be expressed with high and fine expressions of music like Handel's Messiah, and there are aspects of God's character and relation to us that can only be expressed with more common and folk-like kinds of music like "Amazing Grace" and "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," and "The B-I-B-L-E."

But there is one other command about what songs we should sing. In fact, this word, this adjective is used with the word sing more than any other word. What songs should we sing....

C. Songs that are New

Ps.33:3, Ps.40:3, Ps.96:1, Ps.98:1, Ps.144:9, Ps.149:1, Is.42:10, Rev.5:9, Rev.14:3

HEBREW- ḥāḏāš (khaw-dawsh') = Fresh (fresh of the year), unheard of

GREEK- kainos (kahee-nos') = Recently made, fresh, unused, of a new kind, uncommon, unheard of

Of the 50 commands to sing, almost 20% of the commands to sing, encourage and promote that we include new songs in our singing. That’s how important it is.

But I’m unaware of any command in the Bible to “sing old songs.” It’s not disobedient to sing old songs; it simply isn’t something God needs to remind us to do.

Why

New songs of praise are appropriate for new rescues and fresh manifestations of grace. As long as God is gracious toward us, as long as he keeps showing us his power, and wowing us with his works, it is fitting that we not just sing old songs inspired by his past grace, but also that we sing new songs about his ever-streaming, never-ceasing grace.- article on desiring God

And this isn’t just true for today, but for eternity. God will never cease to inspire awe in us about the breadth and depth and height of who he is and his mind-boggling love for us in Christ, and we get the joy of continuing to create and sing new songs of praise to him for it.

Look at the worship in the book of Revelation, and see that this is what they are constantly doing.

In Revelation 15:3, we’re told that “those who had conquered the beast” sing “the song of Moses” — which is an old song, from Exodus 15 or Deuteronomy 32 — but they also sing “the song of the Lamb,” a new song. Not just the angels get in on singing a new song, but all the hosts of heavens, and elders and mighty creatures get in on this. In Revelation 14:3 and in Revelation 5:9, the four living creatures and 24 elders “sang a new song.”

Forever God will continue to “show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7), and as he does — for his glory and for our joy — we will keep singing new songs.

It’s a beautiful thing when we get a start on that now.

Chris Anderson says that if we don’t sing and write new songs would be to imply that God is no longer working in men’s hearts to motivate and write enduring songs that inspire and grow our relationship with him. All his work is already done in the past hymns. Yet that isn’t true. God worked in men like Watts, Weasley, Newton to write incredible true and powerful songs. They were new then, and God is still at work moving men to write songs today that about his mercy that is new each morning. “Remember anew what the Lord can do.”

Very similiar to how a familiar passage can continue to instruct and teach us even after the 100th time of reading it. And for that, we must continue to openly declare the awe of God and wonder of who He is in our words and in our songs.