God gave me a voice to praise Him and to admonish others, and so I shall!
One of my favorite joys on this side of heaven is gathering with a body of believers in worship of our Lord Jesus, particularly in song. I love singing and offering psalms, hymns, and songs of praise to God. As a musician and audio engineer, it is a wonder to think about the acoustical energy that moves through a room of singers. There is just something truly special about the joining of voices in exaltation to the Lord. If you have ever served on a music team at a church, you have probably heard someone come up to you at some point and say,
“You have such a lovely voice.”
“I just love hearing you sing/play.”
I really enjoy your music.”
And the appropriate response to all of these is simply “Thank you,” but I like to respond with this too - “It’s a joy to worship alongside you and the rest of the church family.” This typically gets a unique reaction. Many times, I’ll hear “Oh well I don’t sing. No one wants to hear my voice,” or “I don’t sing as well as most so I just sing really quietly.”
Now a quick note, I don’t condemn these people, for perhaps you are one of these examples. Some people in this world are more musically gifted than others, and that is perfectly okay! But if you are one of these people, I want to encourage you today to sing and to sing with might and confidence for the Lord! And here are a few reasons why:
I remember attending youth at Crosspoint Church. Shortly after I confessed Christ as my Lord, I started serving with the youth ministry band on guitar. I typically avoided singing, especially congregational singing. I was quite self-conscious of sounding rather horrid. But then I would see our youth pastor. The youth pastor at that time was a man named Bryan Shippey, and man, was he fun! I would watch our youth pastor during worship and he would be singing his heart out, full of joy and excitement. He would shout to God in praise and you know what? He sounded AWFUL (Bryan, if you ever read or listen to this, I love you brother). No amount of auto tune or audio engineering summersaults could ever fix the tumultuous waveforms that were coming from his vocal folds. But here’s the thing; He didn’t care. All he cared about was giving glory to God. How beautiful is that? It was that devotion to singing nevertheless that encouraged myself and many others in the youth to sing to God no matter what others may think.
Psalm 98:4-6 (ESV)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Yes, that’s right. Your voice is a gift from God. Yes, even you who may only be able to sing while in the shower. He made you in His image. He formed you in your mothers womb, placed every hair on your head, and glued every atom together to create you. He breathed life into you and me. He gave each of us a voice and how dare us to ever criticize what the Lord called good? That question is what Dr. Day would ask me repeatedly in voice lessons throughout college. You see, I had an unfortunate habit of calling my voice garbage. I hated listening to recordings of myself. I would compare myself to so many incredibly skilled vocalists around me and my countenance would fall, but Dr. Day was always good to call out my own self-loathing. He would often say, “Mathew, God gave you your voice, not theirs. God wants to hear your voice, not an imitation of someone else’s. So why on earth would you look down upon what the Lord gave you? Why on earth would you try to hide what God has given you?” Talk about being verbally slapped in the face! But he was so right! God gave me a voice to praise Him and to admonish others, and so I shall! Now that mindset change didn’t happen in a day. Through time and prayer, the Lord guided me past my season of hating what He gave me and led me into an attitude of thankfulness for the gift of my voice.
Psalm 149:1-4 (ESV)
Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the godly!
Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
In the ESV translation of the bible, the word "sing" is used one-hundred and fifteen times. Its used in one-hundred and four verses and in many of those verses, the root word in both the Hebrew and Greek is imperative, meaning it was commanded. It wasn’t a suggestion. So what’s the purpose of that? First and foremost, it’s an expression of worship, adoration and love. I have witnessed far too many spouses, both in film and reality, serenading one another, sometimes in a very obnoxious manner, to think anything different. As cliche as it might sound, occasionally, mere words fail and need to be expressed in poem or song. I believe this is purposefully ingrained in us who are made to worship the Lord.
Not only do we sing in worship, but we sing in admonishment. We don’t just sing to the Lord, but we also sing to each other! This is laid out plainly in Colossians 3:16 (ESV).
Colossians 3:16 (ESV)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
We sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to each other to teach one another the Word of God! Teaching is not just up to the pastor and the worship leader. You are teaching your fellow brothers and sisters scripture when you sing to God in worship. It is like when we use songs to teach children the alphabet and other basic principles of life. Songs stick with us. They allow us to memorize things more quickly and with more depth. What better way to memorize the Word of God than to sing it! This is why singing songs rooted in God’s word is so important. It would be so easy to have bad theology rampant in the church if the songs we are singing don’t line up with His word.
And I could go on and on. At the end of the day, we were created by God to worship God with all that we are and all that we have. You don’t have to be a singer to be able to sing to the Lord. If you are singing with your heart and mind bent toward glorifying the Name that is above every name, then it is the most beautiful sound. He created the voice that you have. Let us, as it says in Psalm 34, have His praise forever on our lips. Let us sing to God and to each other just how marvelous He is.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my rock, and my Redeemer.
Grace & peace,
Mathew Hurst
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