You Were Created to Sing

From Gospel Translations

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Revision as of 04:44, 4 December 2013

God created you in his own image to dream, and work, and laugh, and love, and labor, and hope, and eat, and enjoy the good gifts in this world.

“A man is such a noble work of God,” said nineteenth century preacher Charles Spurgeon, “he cannot have been intended merely to measure off yards of silk, or to weigh pounds of sugar, or to sweep street crossings, or to put on crowns, and robes, and diamonds. There is something grander than that for man to do.”

Yes, and most grand of all: God created you to worship, praise, and sing.

The beauty of Christ is the cause of our songs. His glory draws worship from our hearts to our lips (Revelation 5:6–14, 7:9–12).

This Christ-centered, thank-filled worship is the capstone over everything else we are and do in this life (1 Corinthians 10:30–31, Colossians 3:17).

And so we sing.

To the best of our ability, we sing in our homes.

We sing with our families.

We sing alone in our cars on the drive to work.

We sing together on Sundays.

And as we raise our voices in church we are “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19–20).

So how do we “speak to one another” in our singing?

Pastor Rick Gamache explains it like this:

We come here to worship together — to respond rightly to the glory of God in Christ as the church. And when we do that, we are fulfilling the very reason we were created. And as we do that, as we sing, we are also helping others fulfill the reason why they were created.

Maybe they came in here burdened by their circumstances and their heart is cold, but when they hear you sing of God’s sovereignty and wisdom and love, the burden is lifted and so they lift their voice in song with you.

Maybe they came in weighed down by the knowledge of their own sin, but when they hear you sing about Christ, who died to bear the punishment of our sin in our place, and who lived a righteous life that’s now credited to our account, the weight is lifted and the heart is softened and they join you and lift their voice in song.

As we sing, our Spirit-filled delight in Christ ministers to the burdened, nudges them to look past the afflictions they carried in, points them back to Christ, and encourages them to rejoin the pleasure of engaging in what we are all created for — worshiping our glorious Savior.