I Will Sing with the Spirit & the Understanding
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Intro:
Intro:
Good morning!
This morning I want to start a two part sermon dealing with the subject of singing, and this is the beginning of a 5 part sermon series on the 5 acts of worship that we will look at this month.
I’ve chosen to start with singing.
The reason for this is that singing really is an intimate form of worship.
Specifically, congregational singing, which is what the Lord has given for N.T. worship — That’s something that requires us to break down walls of pride or embarrassment and just … sing!
It’s something that the Bible describes as a product of JOY in the Lord.
And it’s something that really provides a lot of encouragement if we will do it right.
I think back to our Singing with the Spirit seminar we had several months ago — I really enjoyed that because I think we should continuously try to our improve our singing.
Someone says, “Well, I think it’s already great.”
Well, let’s make it greater (because singing truly is a “make or break” item when it comes to the ATMOSPHERE of our worship, first impressions our visitors have, and whether or not we walk away from our worship encouraged and uplifted.
The title for the sermon this morning is - “I Will Sing with the Spirit and I will Sing with the Understanding.”
Then, Lord willing, tonight we will look at “Sing and Be Happy!”
Again, this is a two part lesson.
But in regard to singing with the spirit, and the understanding, there’s two main points for us this morning.
Let’s start with …
Singing with the Spirit:
Singing with the Spirit:
Both of these main points are going to come from 1 Cor. 14:15
What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.
2. The context of this verse is dealing with miraculous (spiritual) gifts, and the fact that the Corinthian church was not dealing with those properly.
3. (We will mention more of the context in a moment when we talk about singing with the understanding, but for now, just note that about the context).
4. I want us to focus on this idea in the phrase “with the spirit.”
Again, spiritual gifts are in mind, here.
But there’s another sense in which we use the words “with the spirit” or “in spirit,” too.
And that is in regard to our ATTITUDE.
5. I suppose this will be a repeat emphasis when we followup with our lesson tonight on “sing and be happy,” but what IS our attitude when we sing?
6. It should be one of gratefulness, of humble adoration, and of joyfulness.
7. Let’s look at some verses on this:
Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
This is an attitude of thankfulness.
When I sing the words “thank you Lord for loving me and thank you Lord for blessing me. Thank you Lord for making me whole and saving my soul,” I mean it!
… And you should, too!
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Prayer is the highlight in this particular verse, but a thankful spirit also applies to our singing!
Notice the words “in everything give thanks!”
Yes, our hearts must be thankful when we sing.
8. Here’s a psalm that makes a strong point!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Have you ever sang out so much in the song service that you were out of breath?!
(I know our song leaders can probably relate to this — Especially when it’s a two-pager, right?!)
(I have on a few occasions [especially if preaching to a really small congregation that doesn’t have a lot of song leaders] had to both preach the sermon and lead the singing — And let me tell you, that makes you out of breath!)
Well, God in this psalm says we need to USE that breath to … “praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”
9. Why, then, is it the case in just about every congregation it seems that there are those who refuse to sing?
I even think of the line in “Marching to Zion” that says, “Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God, but children of the heavenly King, but children of the heavenly King may speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad!”
But why do some refuse to sing?
I think it boils down to pride, honestly — I really do.
10. Look at Psalm 34:1-3 with me.
I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together.
11. Yes, God requires of all of us that we sing with the SPIRIT — that we sing with the right attitude!
12. And don’t forget the words of John 4:24 that we will probably mention a lot in this series - “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH.”
13. Speaking of truth, let’s get to our second point this morning.
Singing with the Understanding:
Singing with the Understanding:
Let’s speak to the words that we sing here.
Read with me the context of 1 Cor. 14 that we talked about earlier.
What was going on in the context of 1 Corinthians 12-14?
The Corinthians were abusing miraculous gifts, namely tongue-speaking.
They were fighting over it, exalting tongue-speaking as the very best spiritual gift in their minds …
And there was a problem that people couldn’t even understand the tongues that were being spoken without an interpreter.
So let’s read beginning in 1 Cor. 14:9
So likewise you, unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air.
There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none of them is without significance.
Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me.
Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel. Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
(Here is our verse from which we got our title this morning).
What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.
Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say?
For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all;
yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.
5. So what is the bottom line here?
6. Paul says that the words we speak in church services have MEANING.
Whether it be the words spoken in a sermon, in prayer, in singing, etc., words convey MEANING.
They convey TEACHING and EDIFICATION.
Thus, the words that we speak are important!
7. We must speak them (and sing them) with understanding.
8. Listen to Col. 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
9. We TEACH and ADMONISH (or encourage/edify) each other every time we sing.
10. Thus, there’s an important principle I want to bring in here, and that is:
Are the songs that we are singing scriptural?
We try to emphasize frequently (and we should) the importance of sound doctrine … in the sermons, in the Bible classes, and we should!
What about our singing?
11. Church, unfortunately there are some songs in our song book that are notorious for teaching false doctrine.
Let me offer this caveat before I continue.
There are some songs that can be sung and depending on what we mean, there might need to be some clarification, but the song can be sung scripturally as long as we mean it correctly when we sing it.
I’ll give an example - Rapture.
That word originally in Latin was raptura, and if you look up the definition of this word, you’re going to find two different definitions.
The first oldest definition means “a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.”
So when we sing the song “I’ll Meet you in the Morning” and it says “and with rapture our auld acquaintance renew,” we can Scripturally sing about the intense pleasure and joy that will be when we see our old Christian acquaintances!
Unfortunately, there’s a second definition of the word “rapture” that is the premillennial definition — and that we would not be able to sing Scripturally.
12. I say all that to say this — Some songs can be sung scripturally if we have clarification in our minds that “we must sing it with this meaning.”
13. There are other songs, though, that are patently false, which we don’t need to be singing at all.
An example:
“Just a Little Talk with Jesus.”
What error does that song teach?
Heavily implied in the song is the idea of the Sinner’s Prayer.
And interestingly, when I looked for this song in our songbook, I couldn’t find it — I think they purposely didn’t add it, for good reason.
14. Here’s some of the lyrics to that song:
“I once was lost in sin but Jesus took me in, and then a little light from heaven filled my soul; It bathed my heart in love and wrote my name above, and just a little talk with Jesus made me whole.”
Just a little talk with Jesus (a prayer to Jesus) made me whole after I was lost in sin?
That’s what the song teaches, but that’s not what the Bible teaches.
15. So I hope that this will suffice it to say that we must sing with the understanding, we must be careful the songs that we sing to make sure they are Scriptural.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
This morning we have looked at our singing from the perspective of “with the spirit” (right attitude) and “with the understanding” (the right words, words of truth that we can teach and admonish one another with).
Both of these aspects must be present in our singing, and if they are not then something is amiss.
Tonight we will have a followup lesson (and I want to do this with each of our sermons on the acts of worship), and the followup for tonight is going to be more along the lines of our attitude when we sing when we look at “Sing and Be Happy.”
(Give invitation).
