Over the past several decades the church has engaged in what has become known as the “Worship Wars.” We’ve experienced a seemingly endless debate about what is the right kind of music to sing in our worship services. Hymns or praise choruses? Traditional or contemporary? Organs or guitars? But when we look at the Scriptures, we find that our music is intended by God to be a unifying force, not something that divides us. And as we continue our journey through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we’ll find that Paul gives us some very practical instruction about how our music can unite us rather than divide us.
For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been in this section of Paul’s letter that begins in Ephesians 5:15 where Paul commands followers of Jesus Christ to live carefully. He then goes on to provide us with some practical principles to help us do that. We are to make the most of the opportunities that we have due to living in evil days. We are to understand God’s overall plan and will and conform our lives to it. And, as we saw last week, we are to be filled, or controlled, by the Holy Spirit by saturating our lives with the Word of God.
Although we’re going to focus primarily on verses 19-21 this morning, let’s read together beginning with verse 18:
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:18-21 (ESV)
The command in verse 18 to not get drunk on wine, but to be filled by the Holy Spirit, is one of three contrasts that Paul used to help his readers understand how to live carefully. Verses 19-21 contain five participle phrases that describe to us the results of being filled by the Holy Spirit:
• 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,
• submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Last week, we discovered that being filled by the Holy Spirit is primarily a matter of Him controlling our lives. That is not some one-time event, but rather a process that must continue in our lives on a moment-by-moment basis. It is also something that should not be true just for us as individuals, but also applies to us as a body as well. That is even more apparent when we look at how Paul describes the fruit of lives that are under the control of the Holy Spirit.
Certainly those results are not limited to what happens when we gather together on Sunday mornings for what we call a “worship celebration” or “worship service”. The actions Paul describes for us in verses 19-21 ought to characterize all of our interactions within the body. Perhaps Paul’s readers could understand that a lot better than we can since they had much more frequent contact with each other than just an hour or two on Sunday mornings.
We also see that the results of being controlled by the Holy Spirit involve much more than just singing. But, on the other hand, singing and music certainly seem to be at the center of what happens when the body is controlled by the Holy Spirit. As we saw last week, the key to being filled by the Holy Spirit is to saturate our lives with the Word of God. And when we do that there is a sense in which we really can’t help but sing.
A little later on this morning, we’ll be singing “How Can I Keep from Singing?” and we’ll sing these words when we come to the chorus:
How can I keep from singing Your praise?
How can I ever say enough,
How amazing is Your Love.
How can I keep from shouting Your Name?
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing.
I think those words very accurately reflect what happens when God reveals Himself to us in his Word. When we understand who He is and what He has done, sometimes words by themselves are just inadequate to express what we’re experiencing. So we must sing.
In a 1997 sermon on this passage, John Piper eloquently expressed that idea:
The reason we sing is because there are depths and heights and intensities and kinds of emotion that will not be satisfactorily expressed by mere prosaic forms, or even poetic readings. There are realities that demand to break out of prose into poetry and some demand that poetry be stretched into song.
So music and singing are necessary to Christian faith and worship for the simple reason that the realities of God and Christ, creation and salvation, heaven and hell are so great that when they are known truly and felt duly, they demand more than discussion and analysis and description; they demand poetry and song and music. Singing is the Christian’s way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling; and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.
But not just any music will do. So let’s spend some time this morning seeing what we can learn from Paul’s letter about the kind of music that gives glory to God and draws us together as a body of believers.
THE KIND OF MUSIC THAT PLEASES GOD
1. It is centered on God
In this short passage, we cannot help but notice all the focus that is placed here on God as the focus of our music. Look at the words and phrases that Paul uses to emphasize that point:
...to the Lord...
...to God the Father...
...in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...
...out of reverence for Christ.
I’m certainly not telling you anything new here. There is no one here that is going to argue that the focus of our singing should be anything other than God Himself.
Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps the greatest musician of all time, said that the aim of all music is the glory of God. In his own life and work the great composer and organist sought to live out that aim, frequently initialing his works S.D.G.: Sola Deo Gloria - to the glory of God alone.
But as he often does, Paul doesn’t just leave us with the principle. He gives us some practical instruction on how to apply the principle:
• It flows form a heart that has been saturated with God’s Word
...singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart...
Paul makes it really clear that the kind of music that pleases God comes from the heart. In other words, it requires something more than just mouthing the words to some particular melody. Frankly, I’m embarrassed by how many times I merely sing the words to some familiar song without really thinking about what I’m singing.
One day, as he was speaking to the crowds, Jesus emphasized the importance of being careful what we store up in our hearts.
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
Luke 6:45 (NIV)
Although we can come in here on Sunday morning and sing the words of the songs without having our hearts properly prepared, that is not the kind of singing that is pleasing to God. Perhaps a better test of what’s in our hearts is what we sing the rest of the week when we sing because we want to, not because we fell pressured into it because everyone else is doing it.
And, as we saw last week, the way that we prepare our hearts to sing is by saturating our lives with the Word of God. I’m convinced that our singing together each week is greatly impacted by how much all of us have allowed God’s word to infuse every area of our lives during the week. There are some weeks when I can clearly sense that we are singing from a heart that has been impacted all week by the Word of God and frankly some weeks when the music is more lifeless. And I have no doubt the difference stems from how well that we as a body have prepared our hearts with God’s Word during the week. Can you imagine what our singing would be like if we would all just for one week commit to saturating our lives with God’s Word?
• It recognizes the sovereign goodness of God
...giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...
That’s a pretty tall order, isn’t it? We are to give thanks to God always and for everything. That doesn’t leave much out does it? Does that mean I’m to give thanks to God when a love one dies, or when I lose my job, or when the doctor just told me I have cancer? How about when my marriage is on the rocks or my kids are rebellious? I know it says always and everything, but surely Paul didn’t really mean that did he?
The only possible way that I can always give thanks for everything is that I have to trust in the sovereign goodness of God. I have to stake my life on the fact that His Word is true when it states:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
As we immerse our lives in the Scriptures, we come to realize that God is indeed good and that He is able to take even the most painful, sorrowful and hurtful things that occur in our lives and turn them into something good. And once we truly understand that, mere words are often inadequate to express what we experience in our hearts. And so we sing.
Think about how some of our music reinforces the sovereign goodness of God. That’s really the message of a song like “Blessed Be Your Name.” And this morning when we sing “How Can I Keep from Singing” we’ll sing these words in the bridge:
I can sing in the troubled times, Sing when I win
I can sing when I lose my step, And fall down again
I can sing ’cause You pick me up, Sing ’cause You’re there
I can sing ’cause You hear me Lord, When I call to You in prayer
I can sing with my last breath, Sing for I know
That I’ll sing with the angels, And the saints around the throne
• It results in submitting to others
...submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
We’ll see in more detail next week that this verse is what I would call a “hinge” or a “pivot.” It obviously is connected with the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit in verse 18. But it is also the basis for what Paul is going to write about relationships with others all the way through Ephesians 6:9.
But as it applies to our music, we find that when we make God the focus of our music, instead of our own personal preferences, it makes it much easier for us to submit to others.
We all have our own personal preferences when it comes to music. Some of you look at our music as merely a warm-up for the main act, which is the sermon. Some of you prefer hymns because that is the kind of music you have experienced most in your life. Some of you prefer the more contemporary music and you feel that it helps you connect with God most effectively. We’ll talk a little more about this in a moment. But if we really sing out of a reverence for Christ it allows us to submit those preferences to those of others. When our main focus is on God, we are able to place a lot less attention on our own preferences.
2. It has both a horizontal and a vertical aspect
...addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord...
To me, this is one of the most fascinating principles in this passage. I know that we would all agree that when we gather together and sing, we sing to God. He is our audience. But this passage also describes how we are to sing to one another. Let’s look briefly at both those aspects:
• We sing to God
As I said, this is pretty obvious to us. When we sing together as a body, God is our audience.
• We sing to each other
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really thought much about this aspect of our singing. But there is no doubt that we are to address each other with our psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Many of your translations render this phrase “speaking to one another”, but the word that is used there is a word that can describe all different kinds of sounds. For instance, in Revelation the same word is used to describe the sound of the trumpet and the sound of thunder. So that would certainly include the idea of singing to each other.
The first picture that came to mind here was some musical like “Grease” where John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John sing to each other throughout the movie. But I doubt that is what Paul has in mind. We need to remember that his readers did not all have their own copy of the King James Bible. Much of the New Testament still hadn’t been written and even the Old Testament wasn’t available to the masses. So they often used music as a tool to memorize Scripture and to share the truths about God with each other. And even though we have the Scriptures in written form today, there is still great value in singing to each other. When we gather together as a body and put Biblical truths to music, what we are doing is testifying that these words are true, not just for us as individuals, but for us as a body.
Music is also a great tool for bringing people together. As citizens of the United States, we are united by our national anthem. When the Star Spangled Banner begins to play we all rise together and take off our hats in unison. When we go to a sporting event, we are united together by the school fight song. When Mary and I go to the U of A basketball games, and the band plays “Bear Down Arizona” most of the fans stand together and clap and cheer. And when we sing to each other in the body, our music also unites us.
So music that pleases God incorporates both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationships with each other.
3. It has a variety of expressions
One of the important principles that we can take from this passage is that God enjoys a variety of singing and music. No wonder that the psalmist five different times commands us to sing a “new song” to God and that when we read about the worship in heaven in the Book of Revelation, there are also several references to a “new song”. Let’s look at a couple different aspects of this variety.
• Both voices and instruments
...singing and making melody to the Lord...
There are some Christian groups who have taken the position that we are not to sing at all, but merely to speak these psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to each other. It’s unfortunate that they misunderstand the meaning of the word “speaking” or “addressing” in verse 19. But the Greek word for "singing" in verse 20 very clearly means "to sing with the voice."
I know that some of you are really reluctant to sing because you feel like you don’t have a very good voice. But if you are truly singing from the heart, then God wants you to sing out – to Him and to others. Paul didn’t write that just the most talented singers are to use their voices to praise God. This is not “American Idol” where only the best singers advance to the next week and the rest are eliminated.
There are also some Christian groups who have taken the position that we are not to use musical instruments in our worship. They take that position because they claim that there is no command to play instruments in the New Testament and there is no Biblical evidence that they were used in the worship of the early church.
However, the Greek word translated “making melody” is the word “psallo”, from which we get our word “psalm”. The word originally came from a root word that meant ‘to pluck” and came to include the idea of plucking an instrument, particularly a harp. By the time Paul wrote, the word represented the making of any instrumental music.
So it is clear that we are to use both our voices and instruments as we worship God with our music.
• A variety of forms
Paul makes reference here to three different forms of music – psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Before we look at those terms individually, let me first give you a couple of cautions. First, we need to keep the big picture in mind. I think Paul’s main point is that there are a variety of forms of music that God is pleased with. So we need to be careful not to make too much out of the differences among these three terms. Second, although we have a pretty good idea about what each of these terms mean, there is not universal consensus about exactly what Paul is indicating by each one.
However, with those caveats in mind, I think it is helpful for us to look at the meaning of these three terms. But before we do that, we need to look at one more passage that will help us put these three forms in their proper perspective. Listen to the words of Jesus in John 4:
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
John 4:23, 24 (NIV)
Jesus points out that there are two distinct, yet equally important aspects to our worship. There is a spiritual side to our worship that involves our intuition and leads to a more spontaneous, Spirit-led expression of our love for God. And there is also the truth element which focuses on the truth of God’s Word and leads to a more structured and orderly form of worship. Jesus made it clear that it is not a matter of one or the other, but that the kind of worship that God seeks must include both elements. By describing these three distinct forms of music, I think Paul helps us to understand how our music can help us to address both aspects – spirit and truth – in our worship.
o Psalms
We’ve already seen that word translated “psalm” has to do with musical instruments. Although the word is obviously used to describe the Psalms of the Old Testament, it is also used frequently in the Greek Old Testament to refer to songs of praise that are accompanied by musical instruments and in the New Testament that same root word is used when referring to singing songs of praise to God.
Much like the Old Testament Psalms themselves, the psalms Paul is describing here speak primarily of the nature and work of God, especially in the lives of believers. They tend to be simpler, shorter, and more personal and less theological than a hymn and are sung to God rather than just about God. Much, but certainly not all, contemporary music would fit in this category.
These songs generally address the vertical aspect of our singing as we sing to God and they also help us to fulfill the aspect of worshipping God in spirit.
o Hymns
The Greek word for hymn literally means “a song of praise”. It is a declaration of how great someone or something is. These are songs that primarily express spiritual truths about the nature of God and his works. Many biblical scholars believe that portions of early Christian hymns were quoted in New Testament passages like Colossians 1:12-16 and Philippians 2:5-11. From those passages we can determine that those hymns focused on the redemptive work of Christ on the cross.
I think that this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote about “addressing one another” since these songs would have been used to share spiritual truths among the believers. Hymns also are the primary way that we worship God in truth through our music.
o Spiritual Songs
A spiritual song seems to be more of a spur of the moment creation. Remember, the early church didn’t have PowerPoint so they could display the words to the songs. In fact, they didn’t have hymnals or song books of any type. Although they probably had certain songs that they memorized and sang rather consistently from time to time, much of their music was much more spontaneous.
One Sunday evening at a church service in Mission Viejo, John and Marie Barnett were leading worship. They had been singing “Isn’t He” and as John continued to play the words to what would become the song we know as “Breathe” just spontaneously came out of the words of Marie. Here’s how she described that experience:
“I was so enthralled with Jesus at that moment, thinking I could never live, I could never even take a breath if I didn’t have a word from Him every day. And so I heard those words-’this is the air I breathe, this is my daily bread’-and I started singing them."
Those kind of spiritual songs obviously are more associated with worshipping in spirit. I’m not sure we generally experience that quite so much in the church today as Paul’s readers would have. But hopefully we’ve all experienced those times when we were so enthralled with Jesus that we just sing or speak out. Perhaps today we tend to experience that more in the sense of words that we speak out to God as we sing to Him.
Not every song can easily be classified as strictly a palm or a hymn. For instance, we’ll sing “How Great is Our God” in a few minutes. That song really contains elements of both a hymn and a psalm. It teaches us about the nature of God, but it also contains a personal expression of what that means in our lives.
I was once of the school that many churches have subscribed to these days where they have multiple worship services – usually one they deem a “traditional” service where they only sing traditional hymns and the other that they call “contemporary” where they only sing contemporary songs and praise choruses.
I’m not sure of all the history here at TFC that has resulted in us using a more blended music style that includes both traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs. But my guess is that decision was originally more practical than theological. In order to try to address the varied musical preferences of the congregation a variety of music was used. But based on what we’ve learned this morning, there is a much deeper Scriptural basis for what we’re doing.
I’m very hopeful that one day we’ll have to go to multiple services in order to accommodate all the people that God brings here. But when that happens, I am absolutely committed to continuing a variety of music in our worship services. We need psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, both traditional and contemporary, in order to fulfill the command to worship God in spirit and in truth and to address both the horizontal and vertical aspect of our singing.
I’m convinced that the worship wars we’ve experienced in the church have come about because we’ve asked the wrong questions. The question should not be hymns or praise choruses? Traditional or contemporary? Organs or guitars? But when we truly saturate ourselves in the Word of God and see His greatness, the question we need to ask is “How can we keep from singing?”
