Sing with Heart and Mind

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2169 Microphone in Your Heart

According to Newsweek the stethoscope, commonly used by doctors to listen to one’s heart, is due to become obsolete. A new invention unveiled recently by the Heart Association is a microphone that can record the sound waves from within the heart on a mike’s ceramic plate. This tiny microphone can be slipped through the veins right up into the heart itself and the vibrations are amplified as sound or as a diagram on a picture tube.

What if there were a mic, not for your blood pump, but for your heart and soul? What kind of sounds would it pick up? Would your heart be always ready to give an answer, a testimony, a word of praise or encouragement? We are told to always be ready.

1 Peter 3:15 KJV

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

We are made ready when we sanctify or set apart God in our hearts. We get ready by being in the word and in prayer every day. We get ready when we do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together in Church. We are also reminded that we can minister to our hearts, make sure they are ready, by singing both publicly and privately.

Ephesians 5:19 KJV

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Songs are soul food. Songs are tools God uses to catapult truth from our brains into our very heart and soul.

Your heart and mind require a good, balanced diet of gospel truth that will build you up for your working week, your times of trial, and for each season of life. The lyrics of the songs we sing in our churches and repeat in our hearts find their way into shaping our priorities, our behavior, our loves . . . into the quiet space (or not so quiet, if you have kids) of the car journey on a Monday morning, into the language of our prayers as we fall asleep, into the answers we give “for the hope that [we] have” (1 Pet. 3:15). It always strikes us in church prayer meetings how often we hear people use phrases in their prayers that come straight from the hymns they sing.

The truth is that the songs we sing on Sunday stick with us—and so they shape us. It’s been said, rightly, that you have the people when you have their songs, perhaps even more than their sermons. That’s because truth soars on the air of a great melody. Just as food is not simply enjoyed just because it is edible, we don’t enjoy songs just because they contain truth, but because they are artistically beautiful and satisfying—they captivate us in a deeper and more durable way. Such songs thrill our minds and hearts. We can’t wait to sing them, and we never forget them.

Throughout the centuries the people of God have in huge measure learned their faith through what they sang together. Eat good soul food on a Sunday and you will find your soul growing and thriving through the week, and through your life. Here’s how that happens.

1 Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty, Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2017).

Singing Takes Sunday’s Truths Into Monday

Files away the messages of the lyrics into our hearts and minds

Motivate us.

Help us remember scripture

Help us when we want to communicate the Gospel to a friend.

Every day we hear the sound of wisdom and of folly.

Songs of the Lord helps us hear the right voice above the world’s song of seduction

Proverbs 4:23 KJV

Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.

Nothing in my hand I bring Simply to the cross I cling Naked, come to Thee for dress Helpless, look to Thee for grace Foul, I to the fountain fly;Wash me Savior or I die (Augustus Toplady, “Rock of Ages,” 1763)

Philippians 2:7–11 KJV

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We were condemned and hopeless

Hope came in the form of the Son of God

He made Himself nothing

How He became obedient to the death of the cross

How he conquered sin and death

Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church Chapter 4. Sing! . . . with Heart and Mind

Friends, if our singing is not impacting how we process life—if it is not strengthening us, training us, encouraging us, and comforting us, then we have not unwrapped the gift that singing is to us. We’ve been playing with the wrappings.

Most of us sing at times in our week, or hum a tune that reminds us of its lyrics. Be singing what you sang on Sunday. Be singing the gospel.

Singing Sustains You In Every Season of Life

We need to sing the whole counsel of God.

Acts 20:27 KJV

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

The Book of Psalms is the only Inspired Hymnbook. It is our guide and challenge as to what Hymns are to cover and what songs should be in our hearts.

A Vision of Who God is

Psalm 75:1–2 KJV

Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: For that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare. When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly.

Psalm 23:1–2 KJV

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.

Psalm 15:1–2 KJV

Lord, Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, And speaketh the truth in his heart.

Psalm 2:1–4 KJV

Why do the heathen rage, And the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, And cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: The Lord shall have them in derision.

Psalm 29:1–3 KJV

Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: The God of glory thundereth: The Lord is upon many waters.

Psalm 56:8 KJV

Thou tellest my wanderings: Put thou my tears into thy bottle: Are they not in thy book?

How to Deal With Real Life

Psalm 13:1 KJV

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

Psalm 16:9–10 KJV

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Psalm 18:33 KJV

He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, And setteth me upon my high places.

Psalm 103:14 KJV

For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.

Psalm 88:18 KJV

Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance into darkness.

Psalm 16:11 KJV

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Over One Third of the Psalms are Laments

The Psalms tell us to sing when we’re happy. We have freedom to dance with exuberance, to shout loudly, to sing and play music with artistic excellence, to celebrate our victories. But we must not only sing songs that help us when we’re happy. We can also sing because we’re sad, and we must also sing of Christ when we’re sad. We have freedom to weep, to pour out our souls to a God who hears and who acts. We sing for our brothers and sisters in those moments or seasons when they cannot. We sing, as the Psalms train us, to help us bring all of our lives, failures, successes, losses, gains, dreams, and ambitions into gospel perspective. Our singing can prepare us for every season of life, and sustain us through every season of life. We don’t need a musical escape from our lives; we need to gaze on the Savior of our lives—our refuge and help and comfort. 1

1 Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty, Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2017).

Singing Reminds You of What God Has Done In Your Life.

Lamentations 3:21–23 KJV

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;there is no shadow of turning with Thee;Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;as Thou hast been Thou forever will be.Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness.Morning by morning new mercies I see;all I have needed Thy hand hath provided;great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.(Thomas Chisolm, 1923)1

1 Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty, Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2017).

Singing Keeps Your Mind on Eternity

Jeremiah 17:7 KJV

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

Soon and very soon..

I’ll fly away

I’m kinda homesick for a country

It will be worth it all

Face to face I shall behold Him

I am Going to a City

Someday the silver cord will break and I no more as now shall sing

Sing! How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church Chapter 4. Sing! . . . with Heart and Mind

Keith’s grandfather used to arrive at Sunday worship a good forty-five minutes early. He would sit down in the place where he always sat and would flip through his hymnal and pray as he prepared for the service. Those songs held him. They taught him. They rehearsed the truth for him. They kept him looking forward to what was eternally real—what had always been true from before the foundation of the world, and what would remain being true for the rest of his lifetime and beyond. And when he was in his nineties, and was unable to remember his own family’s names, much less accomplish even the most basic, everyday task, he could still recite or respond to the words and melodies of those hymns.

Those were the songs he had sung and carried with him throughout his life. Locked inside the folds and wrinkles of his long-term memory, he was able to retrieve them when everything else had become confused. And they brought him considerable peace, even at the most difficult stages of his declining years. For him, as for many, life’s greatest battles were at the end. He had his songlist for that time prepared, and it carried him into glory. Like him, we need to sing the songs now that we want to grow old with—songs that will lift our hearts and sights to eternity and our eternal Lord when earthly life begins to slip from our hands. Like him, we need to sing those songs with others in our churches, that they, too, may look to eternity every day, including their last day. May we, like him, fall asleep with gospel songs on our lips and awake to the sounds of heaven singing.

WELCOME TO EVANGELICAL BAPTIST CHURCH

Psalm 33:1–3 KJV

Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: For praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp: Sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song; Play skilfully with a loud noise.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise him all creatures here below Praise him above ye heavenly hosts Praise father, son, and holy ghost

Hymn # 276 - Ring the Bells of Heaven

Psalm 96:2 KJV

Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; Shew forth his salvation from day to day.

Come, ye sinners, lost and hopeless, Jesus’ blood can make you free; For He saved the worst among you, When He saved a wretch like me.

And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean, And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean.

To the faint He giveth power, Through the mountains makes a way; Findeth water in the desert, Turns the night to golden day.

And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean, And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean.

In temptation He is near thee, Holds the pow’rs of hell at bay; Guides you to the path of safety, Gives you grace for every day.

And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean, And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean.

He will keep thee while the ages Roll throughout eternity; Though earth hinders and hell rages, All must work for good to thee.

And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean, And I know, yes, I know Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean.

Psalm 20:7 KJV

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.

Hymn # 315 Tell Me The Old, Old Story

Bulletin Insert - Oh Say But I’m Glad

Bulletin Insert - Jesus Took My Burden

TESTIFY!

Missionary Letter

Scripture Reading 1 Peter 3:15

Hymn # 513 Saved By Grace