Dale Partridge - Worship That Trains the Saints and Conquers the Nations

00:00:00.000 Well, good morning, church.

00:00:07.020 Praise God for the worship that we have participated in thus far.

00:00:12.440 It's been a blessing to hear you all singing, to be able to confess sin together, to be

00:00:19.840 able to go through these things each and every week.

00:00:22.460 It's a beautiful reminder to me of God's people worshiping here on the earth.

00:00:28.820 It's wonderful.

00:00:30.000 Now, this morning we're going to be talking about a very important topic.

00:00:36.500 It's going to be a sermon that you need to hear.

00:00:42.380 Many of us may not think so, but this sermon this morning is vital for your life with Christ.

00:00:51.340 It's important because this is a part of the church that's slowly dying in our age.

00:01:00.000 This part of the church is singing.

00:01:05.420 There is a death of singing in the church.

00:01:12.220 We live in an age of self-centered Christianity, of self-centered worship.

00:01:22.100 We think that when we come to church that it's all about us, about how we feel, about our experience.

00:01:30.000 If I could just have a nickel for every time I heard somebody say,

00:01:35.780 I don't go to church anymore because I don't get much out of it.

00:01:40.240 I'd be a pretty rich man.

00:01:44.040 The modern church has catered to that mindset.

00:01:48.620 We've made singing optional, a matter of taste rather than obedience.

00:01:56.000 Imagine saying this about prayer.

00:01:57.820 I just don't pray much

00:02:01.260 because I don't get much out of it

00:02:02.960 I don't read the Bible too good

00:02:07.280 so I just don't read it

00:02:09.960 I don't get much out of it

00:02:11.860 God wouldn't expect that of me

00:02:13.840 right?

00:02:17.200 but when it comes to singing

00:02:18.740 that's exactly what most Christians believe

00:02:22.160 I can't sing

00:02:24.520 so surely God doesn't expect me to

00:02:27.560 right? The Bible teaches something entirely different. There are over 400 references in

00:02:39.860 the scriptures to God's people singing, and more than 50 direct commands in the Word of God

00:02:47.800 for God's people to sing.

00:02:52.680 Commanded, not suggested.

00:02:56.860 Singing is not a side dish in the Christian life.

00:03:00.140 It is a central act of worship.

00:03:04.140 And yet the vast majority of Christians today don't sing.

00:03:08.520 Not with conviction, not with joy,

00:03:11.800 not with biblical understanding.

00:03:14.420 Why is this?

00:03:15.660 because we've been trained in modern day

00:03:20.280 to be passive consumers of worship.

00:03:25.340 We've structured services around performance.

00:03:29.380 We've put professionals on the stage

00:03:31.980 with lights and sound systems

00:03:34.280 and called it participation.

00:03:37.420 But let's be honest.

00:03:39.920 We really don't expect you to sing, do we?

00:03:43.280 let the professional do it they're better anyways

00:03:49.140 when we don't sing we forget something essential about christian worship

00:03:59.940 there's a truth within christian worship that's lost when we don't sing

00:04:06.680 we forget that we are not the audience in christian worship god is

00:04:12.420 you are not the audience of worship

00:04:17.680 God is the audience in worship

00:04:21.740 church this is not a minor issue

00:04:25.380 this is an entire muscle in the Christian life

00:04:29.800 that has almost completely atrophied

00:04:32.100 if I stood up here today and I told you

00:04:35.960 that we needed to become better prayers

00:04:37.700 better Bible readers

00:04:39.660 quicker to confess sin

00:04:41.840 nobody would have a problem.

00:04:45.520 But because I stand here today and I say that you must become a better singer,

00:04:50.960 many of us bristle on the inside.

00:04:55.840 We struggle with this teaching.

00:05:00.640 But according to Scripture, part of my job as a pastor,

00:05:06.360 because it is commanded so often throughout the Word of God,

00:05:09.780 is to make you a better singer.

00:05:13.360 Not for performance,

00:05:15.740 but for worship,

00:05:17.960 for discipleship,

00:05:20.740 for spiritual warfare.

00:05:24.080 Because when we sing together as the body of Jesus Christ,

00:05:27.780 we're doing more than just making music with our mouths.

00:05:31.920 We are proclaiming truth.

00:05:35.060 We are building unity with one another.

00:05:38.260 and we are waging war in a very dark age.

00:05:43.880 And let me speak directly to the men just for a moment.

00:05:48.100 Men struggle to sing.

00:05:51.880 We've been told for too long that singing is effeminate.

00:05:56.040 We believe that emotion belongs to women and doctrine belongs to men.

00:06:03.340 But I'll remind you, the book of Psalms,

00:06:06.980 which is the largest book of the Bible, mind you,

00:06:10.920 is the Bible's songbook,

00:06:13.260 and it was written by a warrior king.

00:06:16.860 King David, the giant slayer,

00:06:19.320 is the one who wrote,

00:06:20.900 I will sing to the Lord a new song.

00:06:25.560 Israel's armies sang before they went out to fight.

00:06:29.560 Paul and Silas sang in prison.

00:06:32.680 Jesus' disciples, as well as Jesus,

00:06:35.020 sang a hymn after the Lord's Supper on the way to the cross.

00:06:41.720 Singing is masculine.

00:06:45.260 Singing is militant.

00:06:48.540 Singing is Christ-like.

00:06:52.520 And if the church is to be reformed in our generation,

00:06:55.580 then part of that reformation must be this.

00:06:59.740 We must recover the muscle of singing in the church.

00:07:05.020 so today we're going to ask three things that will help us uncover how to grow this muscle

00:07:16.300 in the church we're going to ask why does god command us to sing we're going to ask what is

00:07:24.340 what does true biblical worship sound like and then we're going to end with how do we grow

00:07:32.960 in our singing. It's a why, a what, and a how. So let's begin with the why.

00:07:41.800 Why does God command his people to sing? God commands his people to sing because singing

00:07:51.240 is vital to his worship. God has told us in his word that singing is not neutral.

00:07:59.980 it's disobedience for the church to be silent instead of sing

00:08:06.660 worship is not optional it's not a tag-on to your christian life it doesn't make you a more

00:08:14.600 spiritual christian because you sing it's not decorative flourish or the garnishment atop our

00:08:22.720 Sunday morning gatherings. Psalm 33 verses 1 through 3 gives us heaven's perspective on this

00:08:30.080 topic. It says, Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, for praise from the upright is beautiful.

00:08:40.560 Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully with a shout of joy. Did you catch that?

00:08:50.500 worship is not just commanded in this verse it's called beautiful by god

00:08:58.040 he doesn't merely endure our singing he delights in it he finds pleasure in the sound of his people

00:09:08.780 rejoicing he commands us to sing not to burden us but to bless us because praise aligns our hearts

00:09:17.280 with God's glory and fills his courts with praise and joy.

00:09:25.500 This is the sound of the righteous, not grumbling, not silence, but songs of joy rising to the

00:09:36.980 throne of God.

00:09:39.420 This brings us back to the main text that we're talking about this morning, Colossians

00:09:45.080 3.16.

00:09:47.280 Paul, in this verse, is echoing the pattern of the Psalms.

00:09:52.680 True worship, worship that rejoices in the Lord and is beautiful in His sight, is not silent.

00:10:00.440 It's melodic, joyful, and full of truth.

00:10:06.060 And this kind of thorough worship is how the Word of Christ dwells in us richly.

00:10:17.280 Psalms 33 shows us that singing is fitting for righteous people.

00:10:22.920 And Colossians 3 shows us that singing is formative for the church.

00:10:28.280 So then why do we sing?

00:10:31.080 Because God commands it.

00:10:33.740 Because it's beautiful to him.

00:10:37.480 And because through it, the word takes root in our hearts.

00:10:42.220 we are told to sing because God loves it when we sing

00:10:50.000 what does true biblical worship look like if we understand why we're supposed to sing

00:10:59.300 what does true biblical worship look like what are we supposed to be singing that should be our

00:11:06.980 next question. The answer is clear. True biblical worship sounds like the Lord getting all the

00:11:16.280 glory in worship, not us. If our worship is centered on anyone or anything other than

00:11:25.280 God, by definition, it is idolatry. As R.C. Sproul once said, quote, it is imperative

00:11:35.180 that the Christian, at the beginning of his pursuit to understand what true worship is,

00:11:41.220 get it clear that the object of our worship is to be God and God alone. End quote.

00:11:50.020 True worship doesn't begin with our feelings, our preferences, or our experiences.

00:11:58.140 When worship becomes about us, our emotions, our breakthroughs, our stories, we shift the spotlight from the creator to the creature.

00:12:12.680 We may be singing, but we're no longer worshiping.

00:12:18.820 We're performing for ourselves.

00:12:23.440 That church is not worship.

00:12:26.040 It's idolatry dressed in melody

00:12:29.500 But scripture lifts our eyes to a higher reality

00:12:36.720 It invites us to behold the worship of heaven

00:12:41.120 In Revelation 4, 8-11, the veil is pulled back

00:12:46.500 And what do we see when we look through this veil?

00:12:52.840 Worshippers that are transfixed

00:12:54.880 not by themselves, but by the holiness of God.

00:13:01.340 They cry out day and night,

00:13:04.020 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty

00:13:09.320 who was and who is and who is to come.

00:13:17.100 Their eyes are not turned inward.

00:13:20.660 They're turned heavenward, upward.

00:13:24.880 Their songs are not filled with their own stories, their own experiences.

00:13:32.720 They're filled with God's worthiness, His creative power, His eternal reign.

00:13:42.620 This, then, should be our pattern.

00:13:45.860 If worship on earth is to reflect worship in heaven, where worship is pure and beautiful,

00:13:51.560 then our eyes, too, must be fixated on heaven when we worship.

00:13:59.960 Our songs, therefore, must reflect what is seen in heaven.

00:14:06.740 And that means it must reflect three things.

00:14:09.360 It must say three things when we sing.

00:14:14.040 It must proclaim the attributes of God.

00:14:17.020 His holiness, His sovereignty, His justice, His mercy, His wrath, His grace, His truth.

00:14:26.540 It must proclaim the attributes of God.

00:14:32.040 Second, our singing must proclaim the work of Jesus Christ.

00:14:37.840 His incarnation, His atoning sacrifice, His resurrection, His ascension, His reign.

00:14:43.700 Our songs must reflect the reign and the work of Jesus Christ.

00:14:51.540 And thirdly, our songs must proclaim the gospel message.

00:14:58.140 That sinners can be reconciled to God through the blood of the Lamb.

00:15:04.260 If you want to write a good worship song, it will have those things within it.

00:15:10.560 but unfortunately in our day many modern day evangelical churches don't have songs that worship

00:15:22.560 like this many of us here came from churches that did not sing songs like these that sang songs

00:15:32.500 to the triune god that catechized their people instead we grew up with songs

00:15:39.680 I myself being one of them.

00:15:42.740 We grew up with songs like Oceans, I Have Decided, Reckless Love, and I Surrender.

00:15:53.540 These songs, though often sincere, are not examples of the kind of worship that God declares for his people to have.

00:16:05.660 These songs are man-centered songs.

00:16:09.680 focused on our feelings, on our choices, our desires, or our experiences.

00:16:16.520 Some of them even teach downright heretical lyrics.

00:16:21.540 I want to show you this.

00:16:24.140 Take the song Oceans for a second.

00:16:27.900 In that song alone, the words I, me, mine, or my appear over 65 times,

00:16:36.860 Which is pretty impressive, since it's a song made up of two lyrics, a bridge, and a chorus.

00:16:46.260 Who's the center of that song?

00:16:50.180 We are.

00:16:53.500 My experiences, my feet, my trust, my soul.

00:16:59.720 It's me, not God.

00:17:04.160 Or what about, what a beautiful name.

00:17:06.860 it is. It says, you didn't want heaven without us, so Jesus, you brought heaven down.

00:17:19.300 As though the infinite God was somehow incomplete without you.

00:17:26.980 It's an utterly foreign idea to the scriptures, almost blasphemous, that we would think such a

00:17:33.500 thought or sing such a thing on Sunday morning? Or what about I Surrender from Hillsong? It simply

00:17:43.680 repeats the phrase, I surrender, dozens of times throughout the song without ever clarifying who

00:17:49.540 God is or why he's worthy of our surrender. Who am I surrendering to? And again, it repeats the

00:17:59.660 words, I, me, mine, and my, 59 times. These songs are all

00:18:08.320 examples of man-centered worship. The gaze is inward instead of

00:18:16.660 upward. They make worship like therapy for my emotions rather

00:18:22.900 than adoration for the thrice-holy God.

00:18:28.860 And you might be saying to me,

00:18:31.960 Pastor Corbin, aren't you being a little too harsh?

00:18:36.020 I mean, they're singing about Jesus, right?

00:18:39.540 Jesus is in the song, so it's a Christian song.

00:18:43.280 Aren't you being a little too hard-nosed when it comes to songs like these?

00:18:48.640 And I understand that concern, and so I want to speak clearly.

00:18:52.900 I do not for one moment discredit what the Holy Spirit is doing in churches that sing songs like

00:18:58.880 these. I was saved in a church that sang songs like these. God, throughout the entirety of his

00:19:08.440 church, has used imperfect means to bring people to salvation. And in our day, he can absolutely

00:19:16.560 use thin songs to awaken dead hearts. But we must remember that just because God chooses

00:19:27.600 to use an institution or a church does not mean that he blesses everything within that

00:19:34.980 church. A good example of this is the Roman Catholic Church. For 1,700 years, the Roman

00:19:46.540 Give or take.

00:19:49.040 There were plenty of Bible-believing, God-fearing, gospel-loving Christians

00:19:54.740 in the Roman Catholic Church.

00:19:59.060 Does that mean that God blessed every single thing in the Roman Catholic Church?

00:20:04.200 That the Reformation was not needed?

00:20:06.360 That we didn't need to uncover the gospel?

00:20:09.380 No.

00:20:11.760 No, we needed God to bring a Reformation in that time.

00:20:16.320 We needed to purge the church of her errors.

00:20:20.640 And so it is today.

00:20:23.400 The errors of man-centered worship must be purged from Christ's church.

00:20:29.420 We can no longer settle for songs that don't teach us anything

00:20:33.360 except that you are the center of God's universe.

00:20:39.840 We need songs that teach us biblical realities.

00:20:43.660 Our theology shapes our worship

00:20:47.760 And our worship will shape our lives

00:20:50.700 We must sing songs about what we believe about God

00:20:56.200 When I come to your church

00:20:58.500 I will be able to tell very quickly

00:21:00.920 What you believe about God

00:21:02.800 Based on the songs that you choose to sing that Sunday

00:21:06.620 if God has called us to worship him

00:21:14.380 in spirit and in truth

00:21:15.700 then true God-centered worship

00:21:20.520 will proclaim his attributes

00:21:23.440 will proclaim the work of Jesus Christ

00:21:27.000 and will proclaim the gospel

00:21:29.740 I want to contrast just for a moment

00:21:35.720 those songs that we talked about

00:21:38.040 with some of the songs that we sing here.

00:21:40.700 Because I often get the question,

00:21:42.840 why at Kingsway do you sing songs

00:21:44.640 that are so old and archaic

00:21:46.520 and say things like thee and thou and art?

00:21:51.100 Nobody talks like this anymore,

00:21:52.780 so why do you sing songs like that?

00:21:57.640 Think of the song Rock of Ages.

00:22:01.080 Rock of Ages, clap for me

00:22:04.940 Let me hide myself in Thee.

00:22:10.280 Let the water and the blood

00:22:14.260 from Thy wounded side which flowed

00:22:19.160 be of sin the double cure.

00:22:24.700 Save from wrath and make me pure.

00:22:30.380 What in that song was centered on you?

00:22:34.940 That song was filled with the gospel, with the work of Jesus Christ.

00:22:45.300 The water and the blood from thy wounded side which flowed,

00:22:49.940 be of sin the double cure, safe from wrath and makes me pure.

00:22:56.780 That song is all about what Christ has done.

00:23:01.680 Or Martin Luther's mighty battle hymn,

00:23:04.120 A mighty fortress is our God.

00:23:07.320 A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

00:23:11.860 Our helper, he amidst the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

00:23:18.520 These hymns are not fixated on man.

00:23:23.080 Sure, they might come from a man's perspective, but they do not glorify you, your emotions, your perspective.

00:23:30.880 they're bursting with doctrine they declare who god is who christ is what he has accomplished

00:23:39.900 and why he is worthy of worship

00:23:42.800 let me be clear a song is not good just because it's old

00:23:49.520 and a song isn't bad just because it's new age is not the tested the test of truth

00:23:58.420 But many hymns that we sing today were written by pastors and theologians hundreds of years ago.

00:24:10.060 They put sermons to song.

00:24:15.040 They intended their music to teach people, to catechize the church, and to lift the church's gaze heavenward.

00:24:23.940 What makes a hymn glorious is not how old it is

00:24:29.200 Or how it makes us feel

00:24:30.740 But what it teaches us about God

00:24:33.780 Its theological substance

00:24:37.920 Is what makes hymns good or not

00:24:41.560 Listen to the words of Psalm 145

00:24:48.140 Verses 3-7

00:24:50.500 which gives us a good pattern for writing songs today.

00:24:58.640 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.

00:25:03.460 And his greatness is unsearchable.

00:25:06.520 One generation shall praise your works to another

00:25:09.020 and shall declare your mighty acts.

00:25:11.660 I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty

00:25:14.820 and on your wondrous works.

00:25:17.080 Men shall speak of the might of your awesome acts, and I will declare your greatness.

00:25:23.780 They shall utter the memory of your great goodness, and shall sing of your righteousness.

00:25:30.620 This is what a true worship song should sound like.

00:25:36.060 Psalm 145 is not merely a good example.

00:25:39.180 It's a pattern.

00:25:41.820 It teaches us what kind of songs please God.

00:25:45.080 Songs that proclaim his majesty, recount his mighty acts, meditate on his splendor, and declare his righteousness.

00:25:57.480 And this is exactly what Paul has in mind when he wrote Colossians 3.16.

00:26:04.280 He had in mind worship that teaches saturated truth.

00:26:09.720 Worship that admonishes us

00:26:14.960 That teaches us about God and not man

00:26:19.420 Our singing is not just emotional expression

00:26:23.840 It's doctrinal formation

00:26:25.980 So let me ask you

00:26:29.820 When you sing

00:26:32.240 Are you exalting the Lord's greatness

00:26:35.580 Or your own emotions

00:26:37.840 Do your songs help the word of Christ dwell in you richly?

00:26:44.940 Or do they leave you more with sentiment?

00:26:49.660 A flavor of Christianity, but no substance.

00:26:56.020 May it never be said of us

00:26:57.860 that we exalted ourselves more than we exalted the Savior.

00:27:04.720 True worship must be God-centered.

00:27:06.640 or it's no worship at all.

00:27:14.360 Lastly, our last section.

00:27:17.100 Now that we know why we are to worship,

00:27:20.780 now that we know what we are to do

00:27:23.040 when we are worshiping,

00:27:25.120 we need to know how are we going to grow

00:27:28.240 in our singing?

00:27:29.720 How should we grow in this ability to sing?

00:27:33.500 And I would say that the answer begins where all Christian obedience begins, in the home.

00:27:43.320 The Christian home is the first sanctuary, the first choir, and the first seminary.

00:27:51.780 That is a sacred place, a place where you're raising your children.

00:27:58.420 They're seeing firsthand from you what it looks like to follow Jesus Christ.

00:28:03.500 if your home is only full of catechism recitation and scripture memorization but no singing

00:28:13.500 you're missing a vital part of the christian life

00:28:17.520 you're giving them an inept view of what it means to follow christ

00:28:25.160 deuteronomy 6 6 through 7 says and these words which i command you today shall be on your heart

00:28:32.040 You shall teach them diligently to your children when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

00:28:42.500 This is a comprehensive picture of life, and singing is one of the most powerful ways you fulfill it.

00:28:52.040 Colossians 3.16 connects it clearly.

00:28:53.780 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

00:29:05.100 The same word we are called to teach diligently to our children in Deuteronomy

00:29:09.860 is that word that must dwell in you richly.

00:29:15.280 One of the best ways to get your kids to memorize anything is to have them sing it.

00:29:23.780 There's whole curriculums in our time built on memorization through singing.

00:29:31.400 Brian Sauve did a whole series on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, singing it that we might remember it.

00:29:41.460 I would say that if we are not singing in our homes, we are neglecting one of the clearest tools for forming the hearts and minds of our children.

00:29:53.780 singing binds truth to memory it teaches theology before a child can even read

00:30:02.200 singing forms the affections in the mold of god's glory

00:30:08.020 before your children can ever open up their own bible and read the scriptures for themselves

00:30:14.680 the songs that you have sung together will be with them in that time when they're very young

00:30:21.820 and little. They will sing the songs you sing.

00:30:28.620 Psalm 78 verses 4 through 7 gives this vision.

00:30:34.000 It says, we will not hide them from their children

00:30:37.460 telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord

00:30:41.420 that they may set their hope in God.

00:30:46.620 If you want to give your children the hope

00:30:49.660 of God? You want them to set their hope in the Lord? Teach them to sing the praises of God.

00:30:57.520 It's an excellent way to give them the hope of the Lord.

00:31:03.700 Fathers, you must take lead in this charge.

00:31:08.340 Some practical ways for you to lead in this. Pick a hymn. We just sang one.

00:31:15.980 I don't have a thing. The Old 100th. What's it called?

00:31:19.660 all people that on earth do dwell.

00:31:23.980 Take it home.

00:31:25.400 It's a very simple song.

00:31:28.160 Sing it all week.

00:31:30.180 At dinner.

00:31:31.980 At your family worship time.

00:31:34.480 On your way to work.

00:31:37.020 Hum it as you're coming home.

00:31:39.760 Learn how to sing

00:31:40.940 so that you can teach your family how to sing.

00:31:45.240 Sing it before their meals

00:31:46.780 and before bedtime.

00:31:48.060 Let your home resound with joyful and theological noise.

00:31:55.700 You don't need a great voice.

00:31:59.480 You don't.

00:32:02.040 Many of you are going to open your mouths and your voice is going to crack.

00:32:06.620 That's okay.

00:32:08.740 You don't need a wonderful voice.

00:32:11.640 You just need a faithful one.

00:32:13.160 God doesn't tune his ear to our pitch

00:32:18.300 He tunes it to our praise

00:32:20.720 To the faith of what is sung

00:32:24.300 That's what he loves to hear

00:32:26.560 My wife would hate me for saying this

00:32:30.040 But I'm going to say it anyways

00:32:30.980 When we were first married

00:32:33.900 My wife is deaf by the way

00:32:36.580 For anybody who doesn't know

00:32:37.820 When we were first married

00:32:39.700 We were in our tiny little farmhouse

00:32:42.600 and I had just got done feeding cows

00:32:46.080 and I came in

00:32:47.920 and she was in the kitchen doing dishes

00:32:51.100 and in her hearing aid

00:32:53.200 she had worship music just blasting

00:32:56.640 so she couldn't hear herself at all

00:32:58.940 and she was singing at the top of her voice.

00:33:03.460 She's deaf, mind you.

00:33:08.360 To anybody who's listening for musical talent,

00:33:12.600 It wasn't there.

00:33:17.060 But I could hear almost what the Lord could hear.

00:33:21.800 A faithful heart in my wife who loved the Savior and was singing to her Savior.

00:33:31.000 That was beautiful, though it sounded terrible.

00:33:35.400 We don't need to be perfect in our singing

00:33:43.320 We just need to be faithful in our singing

00:33:46.760 It is our offering to the Lord

00:33:50.520 And so don't neglect it

00:33:53.060 Lastly, how do we grow as a church in singing?

00:34:02.400 When we gather together as a church

00:34:04.660 we're not an audience we're a family and families sing together i know this is weird

00:34:13.820 but historically throughout the ages families sung together

00:34:17.840 worship is not something that we watch happen it's something that every single person participates

00:34:25.760 in. Ephesians 5, 19 says that we are to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual

00:34:35.240 songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord. That means our singing does two things.

00:34:44.720 It glorifies God and it builds up the body. But how do we grow in this? How do we move

00:34:53.700 from passivity in our participation in the worship of God to activity in our worship

00:35:00.580 of God. First, we have to shift our mindset. Worship isn't about what we feel. It's about

00:35:09.100 who God is. It's not about musical talent. It's about spiritual obedience. You don't

00:35:17.140 need to sound good, you just need to be faithful. That's number one. Second, we have to make

00:35:24.380 it a habit. Singing is a spiritual muscle. If you haven't used it in years, it's going

00:35:31.700 to feel weak at first. That's okay. Start simply with the things that we've already

00:35:36.900 discussed. It will help you grow this muscle over time. You're not going to sound good

00:35:42.600 at first, but after weeks and weeks and weeks of working at it, you will get better. So practice,

00:35:50.840 make it a habit. And third, when we gather together as the body of Jesus Christ,

00:35:59.220 in whatever gathering, we ought to make a point to sing together. We sang at our camping trip

00:36:07.880 as a church. We're trying to sing more at men's night. Ladies' night ought to be filled with

00:36:14.520 singing. Whenever we gather together as a church, we ought to be singing. It's how we demonstrate

00:36:23.120 unity together. It's really hard for a church to sing a complicated hymn if they haven't been

00:36:31.220 practicing together. Whenever we get together, we ought to

00:36:38.500 join in the chorus of God's saints. We ought to let our

00:36:42.620 children see our joy manifest with the body of believers. We

00:36:48.080 must let the visitor who's sitting beside us hear the joy

00:36:51.980 of the Lord coming out of your mouth. That sort of joy is

00:36:57.320 infectious. It's a testimony about your faith to the Lord. This is how we reclaim true worship in

00:37:11.100 the church. By remembering that it's not a concert and worship is not a performance.

00:37:19.560 It's a family reunion. It's saints gathered around the throne of God where we've been invited to

00:37:27.240 join in the song of the church that has been going on for generations and generations.

00:37:35.200 This ties us all the way back to the beginning.

00:37:38.740 We live in an age of self-centered Christianity, self-focused and consumeristic.

00:37:47.540 The church has been thoroughly Americanized.

00:37:50.540 But singing redirects our gaze

00:37:58.220 True biblical singing will redirect our gaze

00:38:03.400 Away from ourselves and on to the Lord

00:38:06.560 It reminds us that worship is not about us at all

00:38:10.320 It's about the God that we sing about

00:38:14.320 So church, I want to charge you

00:38:17.380 to grow into a singing church.

00:38:22.560 Not because you're musically gifted,

00:38:25.320 not because it makes us feel good,

00:38:27.980 but because God is worthy

00:38:29.580 and because his word commands it.

00:38:33.280 Let our homes be filled with the echoes of his praise.

00:38:37.340 Let our gatherings thunder with the joy of the Lord.

00:38:40.440 Let our lives carry the melody of truth

00:38:43.500 into every corner of God's world.

00:38:46.560 until every knee bouts and every tongue sings that Jesus Christ is Lord.

00:38:55.140 Amen? Amen.

00:38:57.360 Join me, if you would, in praying for these ends.

00:39:00.840 Let's pray.

00:39:03.040 Father in heaven, Lord, we thank you

00:39:05.100 that you have made your bride a singing bride,

00:39:11.100 a bride who longs to proclaim your praises

00:39:14.980 and to sing about how excellent you really are.

00:39:20.400 Lord, I ask this morning that you would awaken your church

00:39:23.960 to the necessity of biblical worship.

00:39:29.680 That you would give your people a holy desire

00:39:32.580 to see you praised above them.

00:39:37.120 To not settle for thin Christianity.

00:39:39.840 thin Christian songs

00:39:42.780 that glorify man

00:39:44.740 instead of you

00:39:45.780 God awaken your church

00:39:50.220 in our day

00:39:50.880 to the need for sound worship

00:39:53.620 that our hearts may glorify you rightly

00:39:56.720 and that we may prepare

00:39:59.320 for heaven

00:40:00.060 where we will worship you

00:40:02.000 for eternity

00:40:03.000 in Jesus name

00:40:05.340 Amen

00:40:09.840 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - July 21, 2025

Worship That Trains the Saints and Conquers the Nations

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