Sermon Tone Analysis

*Colossians 3:16*

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God Listens to Music

 

 

Why do we sing in church?

Most Americans don’t even like to sing, at least in public!

Maybe when we’re alone in our car, or in the shower, but just listen during the national anthem at a baseball game and you’ll quickly learn that most Americans don’t like to sing in public!

So why does nearly every church in America have music?

·· For some, it is because we have always done it.

No one really asks why, we just do what we have done.

·· For others, music is a good filler.

One man wrote (facetiously): “the morning service is an hour long, and we cannot expect the preacher to occupy more than thirty or forty minutes even with the announcements and the offering—so we need music to fill up the balance of the time.

We need music to cover the entrance of late comers; music to give the congregation an opportunity to stand and relax before the sermon.

And we need music—at least one stanza—so that the choir can proceed from the loft into the pews in time for the sermon.”

·· For others, music is advertising.

It is how we get people to like our church.

We use music that most people like, and we regularly have guest musicians that we advertise.

Music is advertising.

·· For others, music is preparation for preaching.

It is a means to an end, a way to psychologically prepare people for the preaching.

While there may be a little bit of validity in some of those things, none of those answers are Bible answers.

We need a better reason, a Bible reason.

The Bible talks about singing approximately 300 times?

Not just music (which it talks about many more times), but singing in particular.

At least 100 times the Bible talks specifically about singing praise to God.

God obviously chose singing as one of the most important ways He wants us to tell about His greatness.

And God delights when His people sing His praises together – we will do this for eternity (Rev.

5:6-14)!

We might as well get used to singing together – we’ll be doing it together forever.

Much of the material about music is found in the Old Testament, where we have not only all of the inspired Psalms but also the example of instrumentalists, choirs, and music directors.

Israel was commanded to worship God in song.

But there are also two key texts in the New Testament that show us that music is just as important for the church today as it was for Israel thousands of years ago.

Our text today, Colossians 3:16, is one of those two verses.

So singing isn’t a practical idea for what might be good to do in church – it is God’s idea.

And, as we’ll see later, *God listens to music.*

There are some minor variations in how you translate this text that are important for the meaning.

Let me show you what I believe is the clearest and most accurate way to reflect the original language here:

 

Let the word of Christ fully live in you, with all wisdom teaching and warning one another with psalms with hymns with spiritual songs, with thanksgiving singing in your hearts to God.

 

Here’s how the structure works:

 

/Let the word of Christ fully live in you.

(How?) /

/            Teaching and warning one another with psalms~/hymns~/spiritual songs/

/            Singing in your hearts to God/

 

This is a very Christ-centered text, because the core says “let the word of Christ fully live in you.”

· “The word of Christ” – teaching about Christ, truth about Christ.

While generally this would apply to all of the Bible, specifically this refers to Paul’s teaching here in Colossians.

He has taught us so much magnificent truth about Christ.

Let that “word about Christ,” that truth about Christ live in you.

· “fully” – richly, abundantly, a lot!

Let it fully move in to the house of your life!

This should not be an out of town guest that you temporarily make room for.

This is a permanent resident that has full use of your house.

Truth about Christ, we could say, should dominate your life.

Richly, abundantly live in you.

Let truth about Christ dominate your life.

Now, I want us to look at 10 principles from this text:

 

1.

Music should exalt Christ in our lives

· That first clause (let truth about Christ dominate your life) is the main verb, then teaching ~/ warning ~/ singing are some of the ways that we let truth about Christ dominate our lives.

/Let truth about Christ dominate your life.

(How?) /

/      Teaching and warning one another with psalms~/hymns~/spiritual songs/

/      Singing in your hearts to God/

 

So music should always exalt Christ in our sight; it should lift Him up and deepen our understanding of Him and appreciation of Him.

It should put Him into a place of greater domination in our lives.

2.       Music should correctly teach biblical truth

· If music is supposed to help truth about Christ dominate our lives, then the music has to be correct.

It has to accurately reflect and expand upon truth about Christ.

This is one of the key areas in which we need to exercise wisdom.

We should come together as a church and sing songs that say right things.

Don’t think that just because a song made it into a hymnbook that it is all correct!

For example there are songs that are written by people who believe that a Christian can reach a point of basic perfection, where he isn’t sinning any more.

There are songs written by people who believe that the gospel is gradually going to overtake the whole world and the millennium will gradually happen.

There are songs that are very man-centered.

And so we don’t come into church on Sunday morning, grab a hymnbook, and try to think of some songs that will work.

We carefully choose our songs, tie them together with the sermon and with scripture, and print it out for you in a worship guide.

We need to make sure that we are correctly teaching biblical truth.

3.       Music requires carefulness and wisdom

· “with all wisdom” Music requires carefulness and wisdom.

This is one of the reasons why we don’t have impromptu worship.

We don’t have impromptu preaching either!

The preacher, according to II Tim.

2:15, must be a diligent workman who is accurately handling the word of truth, he must work hard at preaching and teaching (I Tim.

5:17).

We do not come to church and see who can think of something to say.

Someone labors and prepares to preach.

In the same way music requires carefulness and wisdom.

Just like we don’t have impromptu preaching, we don’t have people just come up here and sit down with their guitar and make up a song.

We try to wisely choose good music and present it wisely and lead in a song service that is carefully planned.

· These last two points are why I stay carefully involved in the planning and preparation for our music.

Worshipping God and teaching and admonishing one another through music is far too important for the pastor to just ignore it and let everybody else worry about it.

While I gladly delegate many of the responsibilities to people who are more qualified and more skilled than myself, ultimately the responsibility for the wisdom of the music here falls upon me.

It is a part of shepherding God’s flock that can’t be ignored.

4.       Music is a tool for teaching and warning one another

· This is the common word for teaching in the NT.

The second word is specifically used for warning, or the kind of teaching that is designed to correct behavior or belief.

Used many times in the NT for what you do with someone who is drifting away from the truth, making poor decisions, etc. Admonishing is showing what is wrong.

One of the ways we admonish one another is through music.

This is why we don’t just use songs that are addressed to God.

We also use songs that are addressed to one another.

When we sing those we are challenging one another.

Sometimes David will draw your attention to this before we sing a certain song – he’ll say “Now let’s call each other to obey, or worship, or be thankful.”

· So one of the reasons why we sing together is because we are teaching and admonishing one another with that music.

5.       Mutual ministry is vital for the church

· “one another” – This is slightly off the topic of music, but this does highlight again the importance of mutual ministry for the church.