Foundations for Worship: Singing

Intro:

We are going to add one more sermon to our foundations for worship series. I mentioned last time that we might and I think that it is important to do this just to round this out so that we have talked about all of the essential elements of our corporate worship that we are commanded to observe in scripture.

Now we aren't going to be able to use Acts 2:42 as a spring board for today's sermon because Acts 2:42 doesn't contain this element. This doesn't make it any less important and its not as though we cant find this in the early church because we certainly can. This element is just not something that Luke chose to include there in Acts 2.

Now this element of worship is one that may be the singular most controversial element of worship services today. Few things have the power to get church people upset than disagreements over this element.

Now whether by process of elimination or just intuition you have probably guessed that we are going to talk today about music and singing. As many of you know neither Jake or I would consider ourselves musicians and we never the less have a responsibility to lead you all in song each week and I am thankful that those of you who know music are willing to grade on a curve because we are both well aware that music is not our strong suite. However, we also understand that scripturally worship through song is an important and necessary part of corporate worship and so we ask the Lord to help us and we do our best and hearing your voices join in praise and worship of the Lord through song is probably second only in my book to seeing and hearing that you are learning and growing in your knowledge and understand of the word. In that vein, though we aren't musicians we do count it a privilege to be able to worship with you all in this way each week.

And so today as we have done in the past 3 sermons I want us to consider the foundations of this element of our corporate worship in the Old Testament. We won’t cover every aspect of worship in our new testament context and we certainty wont sound the depths of what the Bible has to say about praising the Lord in song but we will hopefully help you to be able to understand a bit more why it is that we incorporate singing into our weekly gatherings for corporate worship.

Lets take a moment to pray and then jump in here this morning.

PRAY

As we begin i think it is helpful and necessary to consider the fact that while singing is a component of our weekly corporate worship gathering it is not the only aspect of this gathering that is called worship.

Many churches today have a “worship” service and a second service and by worship service they often mean just singing. Ask many Christians what worship is and they will tell you it is singing.

This is why we often try to express in our service that the worship doesn't stop just because the singing portion of our service is over. Singing is a part of worship but the entirety of our service is worship. This is why this series has aimed to explore the foundations of all of these elements, as we have called them, of corporate worship.

It might be helpful to provide a definition of worship then. Its actually a hard word to pin down specifically mainly because it has an inward and an outward dimension. There are acts of worship that we do such as singing songs, submitting ourselves under the authority of the preached word, praying, and seeking Christian fellowship, all of these are elements of worship and all can be done in a way that is not proper worship. These outward acts of worship, in order to be worship must flow from hearts of worship. This means that worship is found in hearts that treasure God above all else.

In Matthew 15:8-9 Jesus quotes Isaiah:

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

We can do the outward forms of worship and seemingly honor God with our lips and even our actions but it is not truly worship unless our heart is near unto God. The heart that is near unto God is one that as the Psalmist says “pants for God, thirst for God as a dear pants for the streams of living water.”

When God is made manifest before us through His word and through His world and we see and behold His majesty and our hearts through the grace of the Spirit are made able to delight in His majesty then and only then are we able to have hearts of worship. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again, he needed a new spiritual sight that was capable of beholding these glorious spiritual realities of the Kingdom and of God Himself. Apart from this seeing there is no way to worship!

Many people feel that they are worshipping because they find themselves in a church and hear the music and are drawn into the beauty of the music and the moment and feel their hearts moved. However, this is an inherent danger in music because it can move our hearts and yet it can do so apart from this seeing and beholding of God and His beauty and i don't care how much you feel moved if that is not the result of beholding the glory and majesty of God then the thing that you have experienced was not and can not be worship.

When we gather for corporate worship it must be with hearts that are overflowing with praise as a response of our own seeing and beholding of the beauty and majesty of God. When we have seen this it is possible to sing aloud and praise Him, to reverently approach Him in thankful prayer, to take His supper and be driven to the remembrance of the cross and to joyfully sit under the preaching of the Word because in that preached word you know that you will see and experience even more of the glory and wonder of God. This is true worship, worship of the heart overflowing into actions of worship as we give our bodies to the service of the Lord.

Praise You With the Song

But now we need to dive into the foundations for the use of song in our corporate worship. It would be easy to simply hop back to the OT and find verses about singing praises to the Lord, there are many and we ould probably settle for that. Psalms like Psalm 95:1-6

Psalm 95:1–6 ESV

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

It is almost self evident that worship and song are closely connected. The first response of a heart full of adoration is often praise and song, this is true even of worship in the world and of the world. Just listen to a group of grown men belt out the Monday night football song in a bar before the big game. Read a sonnet of Shakespeare or another famous poet about a romantic interest. Watch an athlete cover their heart and sing the national anthem at the Olympics. Hearts that adore are often driven to song and praise.

It is entirely fitting then that we shoudl be people who express our worship to God readily in song.

I would even argue that this is a part of our being created in the image and likeness of God. Zephaniah 3:17 shows us God singing over us.

Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Not that God is worshipping us, please don't hear me saying that, I am only pointing out that one of the ways that God expresses His love and pleasure in the salvation and restoration of His people is to sing over us, it is only fitting then that those who are made in His image and likeness would have this same propensity to sing the praises of that which our hearts love and cherish.

Both testaments testify to the natural expression of worship to God through praise and song. However I believe there is a stronger foundation that we can see specifically for incorporating worship into our worship gatherings.

Corporate Singing as it Developed

For this we need to consider briefly the development of worship through song in the corporate worship of God’s people Israel.

One of the interesting points of note as you explore the development of the worship of Israel is that the beginnings are almost silent of song. In fact if you look through the original law as delivered from Sinai you will find that the only remotely musical task for their corporate worship is the blowing of trumpets over certain sacrifices.

Now this is not to say that God’s people didn't sing. Moses taught songs to the people, Miriam, Moses’ sister led the people in song with a tambourine after they have been delivered from Pharoah through the Red Sea.

English Standard Version Chapter 15

20 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. 21 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.”

We see song but this song is not specifically prescribed for the corporate worship of God’s people until the time of David.

Now David is obviously a unique figure who along with Moses and Isaac serves as one of the primary types of Christ in the OT. There are actually some inedible parallels between Moses and Joshua and the Exodus and entrance into the promised land and David and Solomon and Davids victories in battle and the building of the temple by his son Solomon.

I owe a lot here to Peter Leithart a colleague of Jim Jordan who you may remember is the prophetic maxamilist that we have relied heavily on in our time in the minor prophets, especially the latter ones. Well, Leithart has written a great little book called “From Silence to Song” that I would highly recommend if you find what we are going to explore as the foundation for incorporating song into our corporate worship as much of this I learned from him in my study this week.

Leithart in this work points out and explains something that has actually been kind of a mystery to me in all that we have gone over about the transition between tabernacle and temple and into the NT and even some of the questions that our Men’s breakfast time in the judges has sparked.

Leithart in this work notes the significance of what is known in the scriptures as David’s tent. His work has even given me some clarity in the book of Amos where we find promised the raising up of the booth of David that has fallen.

To understand what is happening here and how this all forms the foundation of the incorporation of song into our corporate worship we need to visit the verses that Jake read this morning in 1 Chronicles and see what David does as he brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.

We read in 1 Chronicles 15:1-3

1 Chronicles 15:1–3 ESV

David built houses for himself in the city of David. And he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it. Then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had chosen them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister to him forever. And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord to its place, which he had prepared for it.

The story continues in 1 Chronicles 16:1-7

1 Chronicles 16:1–7 ESV

And they brought in the ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God. And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord and distributed to all Israel, both men and women, to each a loaf of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins. Then he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Asaph was the chief, and second to him were Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel, who were to play harps and lyres; Asaph was to sound the cymbals, and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests were to blow trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God. Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.

Now what has happened is that the tabernacle of God is currently set up in Gibeon, we see that later in chapter 16 and David leaves the High-priest there in Gibeon to offer the daily sacrifices on the alter in the tabernacle but David here brings the Ark of the Covenant, the footstool of God’s throne on Earth and places it in a tent on Mount Zion in the City of Jerusalem. It is important to note that this tent was erected on Zion!

Now here at this tent, this booth we find that for the first time provision is made for song being officially added to the corporate worship of Israel. If you dive deeper into the language and connections throughout these chapters you will find that the service to God that these Levites had offered in transporting the various pieces of the tabernacle is now transformed by David and the service that they are now to offer is the service of singing God’s praises and playing musical instruments in the worship there before the Ark of the Covenant in Zion.

These men can now be said to be bearing the Lord on their praises! They had long ben the ones who carried the various parts and pieces of the tabernacle and now they are the ones who are to carry the Lord before the people in their praise!

Now, there are some unique features of this tent. Most notably as we mentioned the tent just contained the ark, the rest of the tabernacle remained back in Gibeon. It has always bothered me that the tabernacle was split appart like this and yet we dont seem to find God saying that this should not have been done and He even honors David in these efforts to establsh worship here in Zion. Infact one of the most amazing things is that the Temple wasnt actually biilt on Mt. Zion at all, it was built on Mt. Moriah and yet the term Zion is caried over to the Temple from this tent that David had set up.

We also can draw from the data we have in the text about this tent that it was likely just one room and that the priests and Levites who ministered there actually had entrace to the tent and ministered before the ark itself. We also can surmize that David had access to this tent and went in and enjoyed God’s presence.

Understanding this really helps when you consider some of the temple like language used in the Psalms by David when yet there wasnt a temple. David and the ministers of the tent in this tent had access into the presence of God in a way that was not even possible in the tabernacle because of its divided rooms and its limiting access to the holy of holies to the high priest just once a year. Astounding then the access that these men had to the ark here in Davids tent.

This has always bothered me as I said but Leithart makes the case that God was indeed doing something here, that He was providing a picture of what was to come. That He was setting up a cycle of events that would typologically point to the coming of Christ and what the church was to be.

I quote Leithart here to help us move a bit more quickly:

When 1 Chronicles 15:1 describes the location of David’s tent with this word (“place”), then, two things are being said. First, the ascension of the ark to Zion fulfills the promise of Deuteronomy 12. When Yahweh’s throne is placed in David’s tent, it means that Yahweh has chosen a “place” and set His name there. And second, this “place” is the permanent, fixed location for the Lord’s house; the ark has been “placed” in its “place” and will no more move from “place to place.” Once He rests on Zion, Yahweh will not again move (Ps. 132:13–14). The allusion to Deuteronomy, then, suggests that the ascension of the ark marked an endpoint in the story of the ark. The procession to Zion was an “eschaton.” No wonder David was so jazzed.

“An” end, but not “the” end, for the ark did in fact move again, into the temple of Solomon, another “place” prepared for it (2 Chr. 3:1; 5:2–10). In the story of the ark, in short, we find a double eschaton; when the ark came to Zion, the end had already come, but at the same time the end had not yet come. Yet, the fact that Zion is “an” end rather than “the” end does not cancel the eschatological significance of David’s tent. It was not so much that the ark moved from the place at Zion to another place at Moriah. It was rather that “Zion” was moved to “Moriah,” as the ark-tent incorporated into the more glorious temple. Yahweh did not move from His place, but took His place with Him.

Leithart also ads that this process involved David winning victory over his enemies and then bringing the ark of God, the symbol of God’s presence to rest in the place that God had chosen for it to rest and that even when the ark moves into the temple on Mt. Moriah that the name Moriah is not what is used to describe the location that God has chose to dwell, rather the name travels with the ark and as such God is always enthroned in Zion, the place where David had originally set up the tent and instituted the praise and worship that would become so symbolic of the worship that we see from this point moving forward.

We see the imagery of a battle won, God’s enemies vanquished and God choosing a place where He is to dwell enthroned among his people and in this place the thing that marks the worship is not sacrifice but song and praise.

It is also important to note that from this point moving forward it seems that the songs and praise that is offered by these musicians now is orchestrated so that it accompanies the daily offerings, during the time of the tent and later Solomon's temple it wasn't that praise was offered in addition to or separate from the offerings it is that it was offered to accompany the offerings.

Now to keep us moving it is interesting then that Amos prophesies in Amos 9:11

Amos 9:11 ESV

“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old,

And James the brother of Jesus draws on this prophecy in Acts 15 as the church is seeking to make a decision about what to require of gentile converts and James says:

English Standard Version Chapter 15

“Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,

16  “ ‘After this I will return,

and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;

I will rebuild its ruins,

and I will restore it,

17  that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,

and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,

says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’

There are other connections to be had here specifically relating to the gentiles but the significance that I want us to see as we seek to understand the foundation for song and praise being included in our worship is that James connects this prophecy about the rebuilding of David’s tent to what was taking place as the Church spread across the NT world.

When I preached through Amos 9 I admitted that the language here of the booth is difficult and in my exegesis I focused mainly on the restoration of the Davidic line but after reading “From Silence to Song” I believe that the imagery that Amos and James mean to associate with the church is the imagery of Davids tent and the key elements associated with that tent was the access that it provided for a time to God’s presence and the worship through song and praise that David established when the Ark was placed there.

This then forms a foundation for our incorporating of worship into our corporate worship today because the typology of these things was fulfilled in Christ and as worship through song and particularly corporate song worship developed in the days of David how much more now that the true and better David has come and has won the decisive victory over sin and death and is seated on the Throne of David ruling over all now; that we as His people ought to give ourselves joyfully to the very means of corporate worship that was instituted by David there in Zion.

Ill read the last paragraph or so of Leithart’s book as I think it summarizes this all well before we make some closing remarks about worship through song as we see it directed in the NT.

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution So What? Song and Redemptive History

In the course of this book, I have noted several times that the establishment of song marked the ascension of the ark into David’s tent as an eschatological event. And so it always is—song comes at the end, when the Lord has come near to save His people. Israel sings about Pharaoh sinking like a stone after they are safely across the sea, the heavens burst into praise when the Lamb comes forward to receive all power and glory and majesty and dominion, and the saints proclaim Hallelujahs when it is confirmed that the whore is slain.

If these things have not happened, the end has not yet come and we have nothing to sing about. Let’s hang our harps on the willows along the streams of Babylon and be silent forever.

But the church is singing, and always has been singing, and that can only mean that we are witnesses not only to the beginning of the end but to the end of the beginning. Because we are witnesses of the end, the end that has already begun in Jesus, we are so confident of the final outcome that we have begun the celebration a bit prematurely—by, say, several dozen millennia. Song is an act of faith, eschatological faith that David’s tent has been raised, that Zion is exalted as chief of the mountains, that the nations are streaming to worship there. And it is only men and women of faith who will see these promises realized more and more fully—that is to say, only men and women of song.

Some NT notes on Music

We have hopefully demonstrated the foundations for corporate worship through song but i think that it is also important to note as we close some of what the NT has to say as well. Even if we didn't have this foundational piece we still would be able to make a case for music from the NT.

The primary texts in the NT related to song singing specifically and more than just an admonition to sing which we find periodically in places like Hebrews 13:15 is the mention of Psalms, and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs in both Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. That this admonition is repeated twice in two different books is significant and gives us a good idea that these are then the types of music we are to give ourselves to.

The problem is that what these terms specifically refer to is hard to ascertain.

Psalms is relatively easy this refers to using the book of Psalms in our worship. I am thankful that Luke got us turned on to Psalms. Neither Jake or I grew up in church contexts where the Psalms were sung and we didn't really know how with out limited musical knowledge we could incorporate Psalms singing into our service but finding out that there were Psalms set to tunes that we know made all the difference in the world and I love that we are able now to sing these in our worship.

Now I believe that the term Hymns likely refers to contemporary songs written about God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We find examples of these in the NT for example in Philippians 2 where we find what many believe was an early hymn:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Unlike Psalm only churches I would argue that there is president set for those who have the skill to compose songs of praise to God for who He is and what He has done.

Finally, I would propose that the term spiritual songs does not refer as some say to songs that are written under the inspiration of the Spirit but rather to songs that are intended to do as the context in Ephesians directs and to address one another in these spiritual songs, songs that contain spiritual truths that have the power to move and effect our lives. These then are songs that carry spiritual truths and lessons and use the power of song to tune these things into our hearts.

These three descriptions then provide a great framework to describe the types of songs that we ought to seek to incorporate into our gathered corporate worship.

These give us some bounds as to the types of music that we are to sing in our worship. We are to make use of the Psalms that God has given us, there is great blessing in learning to sing these very words of God, we are to sing hymns that have been written to drive our hearts and minds deep into the glorious realities of who God is and the marvelous acts that He has done in the world and in our lives, particularly in salvation though the grace of Jesus Christ His Son at the cross and we are to sing songs that are filled with biblical spiritual truth that teach and instruct our hearts in the ways of God that we might live holy lives before him.

As I said at the start, there is much more that could be said about song and praise as an element of corporate worship. I believe that song in particular needs to be approached with great caution because as a mark of the image of God in us Satan our enemy, and God’s, loves nothing more that to corrupt this element of worship and see us turning in on ourselves in our desires for this element of worship rather than truing with praise and hearts of worship to God.

However, areas that need to be approached with the greatest caution are also typically the areas of greatest importance and as we have seen God Himself sings and the significant marks in redemptive history have been marked by the singing of God’s people and we are to desire to see ourselves now being built up into this restored tent of praise and as David set the example to be a people that gladly come together and join our voices to praise our glorious God in song.