OPEN with song: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjF_xGUS6X8 gives example of melody)
“Sing unto the Lord a new song, sing unto the Lord all the earth (repeat); For God is great and greatly to be praised (repeat).
OPEN: Years ago, I was at a Christian camp, where the Dean of that week challenged the Hi School campers to think of a popular song that was entirely instrumental. Just instruments… no words. AND they couldn’t think of a single song. He then pointed out that most people can’t think of a top-100 song played on the radio that had NO WORDS in the song.
Now, I did a little research and I’ve found a few you might know. The theme from Hawaii 5-0 by the Ventures; Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs; Telstar by the Tornados; Jessica by the Allman Brothers; Wipeout by the Safaris.
But out of the 1000s of popular songs played on the radio, a very small percentage that have no words. Words seem to be important in popular music. And that’s probably why the Bible admonishes us to sing! Not just listen to music… but to actually sing stuff.
Ephesians 5:19 tells us we should “speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”
Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
And, of course, in our text today, David tells us “(God) put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God” (Psalm 40:3) David was given a song… a reason to sing!
ILLUS: Several years back, a group of missionaries spent 25 years translating the New Testament into the language of the Chol Indians. Today the Chol Church is thriving - more than 12,000 believers. What’s interesting is that when the missionaries first came, the Chol Indians didn’t know how to sing. But with the coming of the gospel they became known as “the singers”. “They love to sing now, because they have something to sing about.” (George Sweeting “Psalms of the Heart”) They HAD A REASON TO SING… and so they sang.
Someone once noted: Singing is not JUST for singers, singing is for believers. (Leadership, Vol. 3 no. 1)
If you have a song in your heart, then you’ll sing. If you don’t… you won’t. You won’t sing because you don’t have a song worth singing. So, the question is not, ‘Do you have a voice?’ The question is ‘Do you have a song?’ (Donald Hustead)
Because God created us to sing.
ILLUS: According to Vitality Digest June 1995 “Singing helps reduce stress because it forces us to breathe deeply and use our lungs to full capacity. It relaxes the body and helps lower your blood pressure. (Roger Thies, Associate Professor of physiology University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City)
Another article noted that burn victims who were encouraged to sing while having their dressing changed experienced less pain. And cancer patients saw the levels of STRESS hormones in their bodies drop by as much as 25% and their immune systems get stronger.
Part of the power of music power comes from its ability to relieve anxiety. Music, especially singing takes a person’s mind off the suffering & soothes tension. “By helping patients relax, music eases pain and may even speed recovery,” (Richard Fratianne, professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University in an article by Peter Jaret in Reader’s Digest 9/01)
Why? Because God created us to sing.
Now, that brings me BACK to our text today. David wrote: “(God) put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God” Psalm 40:3
You know, David talked a lot about “new songs” in his Psalms. Psalm 33:3-4 “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. For the word of the LORD is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.”
In Psalm 96:1 David wrote: “Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.”
Psalm 98:1 declared “Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things!”
Now, did David mean we ought to write a new song for God? If you could do that that would be cool! I mean if you write a special song for someone they appreciate it.
ILLUS: For example I’ve written a couple for my grandson Benjamin (I sang a couple samples). Benjamin loves those songs because they’ve been written for him. They’re my gift to him. And if you like to write songs, writing a song about God is a great gift to give God. But the David says SING (not “WRITE”) unto the Lord a New Song.
So, what’s David mean by that? Does he mean we should sing a new and different song every week or so? That wouldn’t be all that bad, I guess. In fact, we try to introduce a new song to the church every once in a while. But if we sang NEW SONGS every month you’d feel disoriented. It would be hard to identify with such songs because you wouldn’t know them. And after awhile you wouldn’t sing them at all.
But when people sing a new song they DO tend to THINK about the words because they’re new. That’s the value of singing a new song it make you think!
Now, (it helps to understand that) at one time, every song that we sing was once new. And what happens with new songs (as they grow older) is that eventually they begin to lose their clout - their value to us. When people sing the same Christians songs over and over again, a lot of times they don’t think about the words. They just mouth the phrases and it doesn’t mean anything to them. But when we sing a song we’ve never sung before that helps us think about what we’re singing… and that’s a good thing!
But now, when David used the term “NEW SONG” I don’t think David was using this phrase to say you’d have to sing a new song all the time. I think he’s using “NEW SONG” like a poet would. I think he’s was using it to describe a song that is special, vibrant, exciting, filled with hope. It means something to you. And you can do that with a song that was written last week - or a couple hundred years ago. The value of any song is in how it touches your heart.
ILLUS: Back when I was in Bible College I had a song like that: “This world is not my home!” It was an OLD song… but I sang it in different ways. If I was really feeling joyful I’d sing it with joy (I gave an example), or if I was feeling a little down, I’d sing it mournfully (I gave another example). Every time I sang it, it was like a NEW SONG to me.
(PAUSE) Now with my grandson Benjamin, every night when I put him to bed he wants me to sing to him. Every night I’ll sing “Jesus loves me.” Now, that’s an OLD song, but it’s new for him and he never gets tired of hearing it. And there’s been times during the day when he’s even brought me an old hymnal and has asked me to sing to him. I’ll go through the songs from that hymnal. They’re OLD OLD SONGS… but they’re new to him. For him those songs are special/vibrant/exciting/ filled with hope, and that’s why he wants me to sing them over and over again to him.
So, it doesn’t matter what song of praise you sing… if it works for you SING IT. Sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing it at church, both near and far. Sing like an angel, sing like a frog; and if you have to howl it, sing like a dog. But sing your praises to God and don’t do it for me. Do it for Jesus, praise Him - that He’s set you free.
Now, there’s another way to think about this “NEW SONG” thing David mentions. Have you ever heard the phrase “New and Improved?” Advertisers use it all the time.
What does that mean? Now, what does NEW and IMPROVED mean? It means: it’s better than any stuff you’ve used before. It’s not like the OLD and INFERIOR things you used to use. No - this is NEW… and IMPROVED.
A “New and Improved” product will do things for you that nothing else has done.
Last week we talked about the fact that - in Christ - we are a new creation. God has given us NEW AND IMPROVED life. And what He’s given - far exceeds anything this world can offer. He’s given us forgiveness – removing the guilt of our past; He’s given us hope … we have a future/ know where we’re going; He’s promised us He’d never leave us/forsake us; and he’s giving our lives meaning, a reason to exist, and a reason to get up in the morning.
And you could go on and on and on. We have a new and improved life, and the potential for an even better life as we grow in Him. And that’s the foundation of our NEW SONG - a song not just of how much Jesus loves ME, but a song of how much we love Jesus.
ILLUS: Years ago there was a song writer named Philip Bliss. After singing, “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” he said: “Those words are true. Yet I feel guilty for having sung so much about my poor love for Christ and so little about his endless love for me.” So he wrote a NEW SONG with these words: “I am so glad that our Father in heaven, tells of his love in the book he has given; wonderful things in the Bible I see. This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me. (Chorus) I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me. I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves EVEN me.”
Now, one last thought: In Psalms 40:3 David wrote: “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.”
Did you catch that? David didn’t just sing… he sang believing that his singing would lead others to put their trust in God. There’s an interesting story in the book of Acts where Paul and Silas are arrested for preaching. They’re beaten and put in prison. In Acts 16:25 we read “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and SINGING hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
Even in jail, having been beaten for their faith, they’re witnessing simply by singing songs. But wait… it gets better than that.
Suddenly there’s an earthquake and the foundations of the prison were shaken. Immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were fell off. (Acts 16:26) The jailer is about to take his life (because he thinks the prisoners have escaped) when Paul stops him and tells him everything is OK. The jailer, trembling with fear, fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
Why would he ask them that question? Why did he ask how he could be saved? Because he’d heard them singing. He’d heard about a Savior who could change his life and he wanted what they had.
Songs about Jesus have the power to do that. The songs we sing every Sunday can offer hope to a hopeless world.
CLOSE: Back in the late 1920s, J.C. Penney had a chain of 1700 stores. His stores were very profitable, but Penney had other investments that he had borrowed heavily for to finance. Then the Great Depression hit, and banks called in the loans sooner than anticipated. His cash flow was tight, and Penney was finding it difficult to make payments.
He was overcome with worries and couldn’t sleep, and developed an extremely painful ailment, Penney checked himself into the Kellogg sanitarium at Battle Creek, Michigan, the Mayo Clinic of its era. But despite a rigid treatment … nothing helped and he was overwhelmed with hopelessness and despair.
Penney later recalled “I got weaker day by day. I was broken nervously and physically, filled with despair, unable to see even a ray of hope. I had nothing to live for, I felt that I hadn’t a friend left in the world, that even my family had turned against me.”
One night he awoke with the conviction that he was living the last night of his life. “Getting out of bed, I wrote farewell letters to my wife and to my son, saying that I did not expect to live to see the dawn.” But the next morning he awoke - surprised to find himself alive. He made his way down the hallway of the hospital, and he could hear singing coming from the little chapel down the hall.
The words of the hymn he heard being sung seemed to shake him out of his despair.
“Suddenly something happened. I can’t explain it. I can only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into a warm, brilliant sunlight. I felt as if I had been transported from hell to Paradise. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before. From that day to this, my life has been free from worry. The most dramatic and glorious 20 minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel.”
And what were the words that transformed his life? “Be not dismayed whate’er betide, God will take care of you; Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you. God will take care of you, through every day, o’er all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.”
Just like the Jailer whose life was changed by the singing and prayers of Paul and Barnabas, J. C. Penney’s life was changed by the singing a simple hymn. Sing therefore because you have a song to sing. Not because you’re good at it but because you love Jesus.
INVITATION
