Chapter 1: What is the significance of singing hymns in worship?
We've been talking about singing this week on the podcast and about singing hymns. Not any particular hymns, but hymns in general. But I wonder, do you ever have the experience I've had when, out of nowhere it seems, the question comes into your mind, does God actually like this?
Here we are in church singing something like, how great thou art, or a mighty fortress is our God, or perhaps something more modern, and the question pops into our minds, does this please God?
Or are those people right, after all, whose only question about the praises we sing is not whether God wants it, but whether we like it, whether we enjoy it? After all, we may not be very good singers, and does that mean God doesn't like it?
On the other hand, He is the great God of eternity, the one without beginning or end or cause.
So why should we think that our singing praise to Him would give Him any pleasure? Scripture gives us some interesting reasons for believing that God loves it when His people praise Him. One reason is that Scripture itself, God's Word, urges us to do it.
And when words breathed out by God and written down by men tell us to praise Him, then we can safely assume He wants us to do it, and that it gives Him a kind of pleasure, the kind of pleasure a father has when his, let's say, three-year-old daughter starts singing to him and tells him, I love you, Daddy.
Another reason is that the Bible contains an entire book, actually its longest book, that's composed of songs of praises, requests, and laments. I mean the book of Psalms. That would hardly be the case unless God has a desire to listen to us.
In fact, such a desire that He has provided us with the very words that we need for every season and every stage of life, from beginning to end, from gladness to sadness. Yes, God wants us to sing. And there's a third reason. We know that the Lord Jesus, who always did the will of His Father and lived to please Him, sang praises to Him.
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Chapter 2: Does God enjoy the praises we sing?
There's one place in the Gospels that tells us very specifically that he did so. Amazing, at the end of the Passover meal, as he was about to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, he and his disciples, we're told in Matthew's Gospel, sang a hymn. We know what it probably was, because Passover was one of those occasions when the same praise was sung year after year.
It was called the Hallel, like the word Hallelujah from the first lines of Psalm 113, with which it began, Praise the Lord. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised.
And to think that as Jesus was singing that, he was about to go and make that a reality. Well, if the Son of God, whose knowledge of God is perfect, sang praises to God, then we can be sure that God loves to hear and enjoys the praises of his people, just the way a father loves the love of his children.
The upper room was not actually the last time our Lord Jesus would ever lead the praises of his children. Do you remember the words of Psalm 22, verse 22? Psalm 22 is the one that begins with an anticipation of Jesus' cry of dereliction on the cross. My God, I'm forsaken. Why?
But it concludes looking forward to the resurrection and to another cry, this time a cry of delight in which our Lord Jesus says, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you. It's really a lovely description of what happens when we meet together in worship. He preaches His Word, and He stands in the midst of the congregation and leads our praises.
Those words are quoted in Hebrews 2, verse 12. They're not only a picture of what Jesus was doing with the apostles in the upper room. They're a statement about what he is doing now when he's present with us in worship and we are with him. Where two or three are gathered in his name, he says, I will be with them and I will lead their praises. So think of it this way.
When we lift our voices in praise together and are helped by the Spirit to praise our Lord Jesus Christ, we're brought into the presence of God. We're actually sharing in the worship of heaven. And Jesus is with us, or better, we are with Jesus. He's in the midst of us, or better, we surround Him, and He's leading our praises.
If anything should make you want to sing in worship, it's knowing that He is the real praise leader.
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