Ephesians 5:18-19

you have your Bibles, turn with me to Ephes

ians chapter 5 verse number 18.

Let's begin by reading verses 18 and 19.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is

dissipation. But be filled with the Spirit,

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns

and spiritual songs, singing and making melody

with your heart to the Lord. Now, as you know,

we split verse 18 up into two sermons.

If you remember, Paul is giving a contrast in

verse 18, you look at it there, between

on the one hand being drunk with wine, and on

the other hand being filled with the Spirit.

That's the contrast. And last time, we

considered what being filled with the Spirit

means.

And I can't use much time today to go back

over all that. So if you missed that sermon,

I highly encourage you to go back and watch it

online to get a biblical understanding of what

it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But I'll give you a little bit of review and

just remember this from last time. Being

filled with the Spirit is not where you come

up here,

and I tap you on the head, you fall over and

flop around like a fish on the floor. That's

not

being filled with the Spirit. Being filled

with the Spirit is not speaking in a babbling,

incoherent way that has nothing to do with a

known language. Known languages were very

clear

and present at Pentecost in that miracle. And

being filled with the Spirit we learned

is not even something that we pray for. And I

've been, I told you, I've been guilty of that.

Lord, fill us with your Spirit on Sunday

morning. No, we don't pray to be filled with

the Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit is a command.

Being filled with the Spirit is something that

we are

to be. And we said that being filled with the

Spirit is a moment by moment by moment

experience

for us. And remember in the Greek, it's

literally be being kept continuously filled

with the Spirit.

That's how it reads. And simply put, that

means when you're filled with the Spirit,

you are not controlled by you in that moment.

When you're filled with the Spirit, you're in

the

position of being totally yielded in that

moment to the control of God's Holy Spirit

over you.

And remember this, the how to get there. How

does a Christian get to that point of being

filled with the Spirit was best given to us in

a parallel passage in Colossians 3. Here in

Ephesians

5, Paul is listing what being filled with the

Spirit looks like. Look again, verse 19. First

thing he lists, what is the Spirit being

filled with the Spirit looks like? Well, first

of all,

it looks like speaking to one another in Psal

ms and hymns and spiritual Psalms. And if you

have

your Bibles open, you go on and just glance

down and see, goes on to give examples for

wives and

husbands and children and slaves and masters,

which is applicable today for bosses and

employees.

But interestingly, all of those same examples,

Psalms, hymns, spiritual Psalms, husbands,

wise masters, all that stuff, is almost

exactly the same in Colossians chapter 3 and 4

,

even some of the same exact words. But the

difference is here in Ephesians 5, it starts

off

be filled with the Spirit. Look at Colossians

3.16, how it starts. "Let the Word of Christ

richly dwell within you with all wisdom." That

's the key, if you remember what we said.

That, since these are parallel passages, that

is parallel with being filled with the Spirit

from Ephesians 5. So, filling your mind with

the Word of God is the primary way that we are

to be

being kept continuously filled with the Spirit

. Now, since we started in verse 18 of Ephes

ians 5,

I told you that we're going to follow in the

context of this passage three primary points.

Number one was the contrast between being

filled with the Spirit, being drunk with wine

and being

filled with the Spirit. We looked at that. And

if you remember, number two was the command

itself

to be filled with the Spirit. And we went into

detail with that. But I want to add a little

caveat here, that being filled with the Spirit

is met with great resistance from our flesh

and from our adversary. Do you remember, and

we've said this many times,

your inner redeemed spirit always, always 24/7

desires to do that which is right and

pleasing to God, right? But you're encased in

this body of flesh. That's what God has ord

ained.

And what did Paul say about the flesh in it

for the Christian even? It dwells what? No

good thing,

right? And for example, parallel to this

passage also, look at Galatians 5.16.

We get a similar exhortation here, Galatians 5

.16. Paul says, "But I say, walk by the Spirit

."

Remember what that means? Walk the manner of

living. Walk by the Spirit and you will not

carry

out the desire of the flesh. And so what is

the resistance to doing that? Look at the next

verse

in verse 17. "For the flesh sets its desire

against the Spirit and the Spirit against the

flesh,

for these are in opposition to one another so

that you may not do the things that you please

,

so that your inner redeemed spirit may not do

the things that you please, to please God."

The flesh, remember, as I just said, is that

in general can be described as that part of

our

unredeemed humanness that we still carry

around. And it's not just our physical body,

but also

including the mind and the will and the

emotions. And all of those are subject to sin,

which is also

where Satan lands with his temptations. I

remember Brother Moat used to say that the

flesh is the

beachhead of sin, and that's where Satan lands

on the beachhead to tempt us. Now, the way to

battle

against this for our own flesh and from our

adversary is not rocket science. It's actually

pretty simple. Paul just told us how to battle

against this. "Walk by the Spirit and you will

not carry out the desire of the flesh." Now,

this is not rocket science. Again, if you're

under the

control of the Spirit, you're not going to

have a problem with the flesh in that moment.

What do I

mean by that? That means in the moments. Think

about it. In the moments that you are

concentrating

on Christ, whether you're in prayer, whether

you're in worship like today, whether you're

reading your Bible, in the moments that you're

concentrating on Christ, guess what? You can't

be concentrating on the desires of the flesh

at the same time, can you? You can't do those

two

things at once. By necessity, you have to disp

el one or the other for one or the other to

happen.

Does that make sense to you? And yes, there is

a war going on there between the two that God

has

ordained for the sanctification of all

Christians as he's using your life and conform

ing you to the

image of Christ in your life. But that's not

our sermon for today. You just got that tidbit

for

free, and that will not be used against my

time, by the way, the tidbit, because we've

got to move

on to point three. The consequences. If you

are filled with the Spirit, what happens in

your life?

Well, there's three things that Paul gives us

next, and this is not an exhaustive list of

what

happened because you think about the fruits of

the Spirit and all the rest of that. This is

just

in the context in which he's speaking here. He

gives us three verses 19, 20, and 21. Number

one,

singing. Number two, saying thanks. And number

three, submitting to one another. Now, for

today,

we're only going to look at this first

consequence of being filled with the Spirit,

something that we

just got finished doing. Singing. Look again

at verse 19. Speaking to one another in songs

and hymns

and spiritual songs, singing and making melody

with your heart to the Lord. Now, we all know

that

music dominates our culture. I mean, think

about it. Music is all around us all the time.

Send a car,

send the home. It's on the radio. It's on our

phones. It's in restaurants. It's in bars

everywhere.

It's everywhere. And we all know that music is

a powerful, emotional stimulator, right? It's

a gift

from God. It's even a common grace gift. And

when you understand that term, common grace,

it's the grace of God that goes out to all

people, believers and unbelievers alike as it

reigns on the just and the unjust. Music is a

common grace gift to all people to enjoy, for

all

people to enjoy. Imagine the world without

music, right? Music is a great benefit to

mankind. Think

about the things it can do. It can quiet a

troubled soul. Have you ever had that happen?

It can settle down an anxious heart. Have you

ever had music do that for you?

Think about the use of music in our movies

that we watch. Think about the effect that

music has in conjunction with the storyline of

some of the greatest movies you've ever

watched.

You can be moved to tears in a movie with the

addition of the music that goes with it.

Music is a comfort. It's an encouragement. For

Saul, it calmed his troubled heart in 1 Samuel

.

Music can bring about great joy, right? I have

great joy when I come here and I'm singing and

I hear

you singing these great hymns of the Christian

faith. Joy unspeakable. Music can be high and

it

can be noble. As you know, I love the whole

time of Christmas and I have little traditions

. You

know I have a bunch of those and one of the

traditions I have at Christmas while I'm

preparing

my sermons is I listen to Handel's Messiah.

That is a high and noble and lofty piece of

music.

But unfortunately, in a fallen world, music

can be low. It can be degrading. It can be

nasty.

And really just about anything in between with

music. And it's very interesting to take note

of

the history of music. In this fallen world, as

it's continued to descend deeper and deeper

into corruption, as the Bible says evil men

grow worse and worse, so has its music. Have

you noticed?

Today, what is labeled as popular music is

dominated by really more and more forms of

degenerate music, lyrics. Think about just our

own American musical history. Consider the

difference

of the music and the lyrics from the 1920s to

the 1950s compared with the top 40 songs of

today.

I mean, music videos today would give the

average person in those days, if they could

see one of

our music videos a day, an absolute heart

attack. I mean, think about they looked at

Marilyn Manson

video. They couldn't even conceive that that

would be something that we'd have in American

culture.

Same thing with art in the more modern era. In

general, compared to centuries past, some of

what is called art nowadays and for a while

now really is anything but art to me. And I

worked

at a museum and I'm telling you, I look at

some of that like what in the world are y'all

doing with

that. I guess I'm not smart enough to

appreciate that as art, right? But the music

of the church

is timeless. Now listen, I'm not talking about

seven 11 songs. What are seven 11 songs? Seven

words sung 11 times, sometimes 1100 times in

the church. I love you Lord, I love you Lord,

I love you Lord continuously until you're

about to pass out. I'm not talking about Jesus

is my

boyfriend songs either. You ever heard one of

those? If you haven't, I'll play you one. You

want to turn it off as soon as you hear it. I

'm talking about the songs we sing when we

worship.

Consider Martin Luther's. A mighty fortress is

our God. That was written in 1529 and we are

still

singing it this day. That is timeless. I mean,

that one will get me ready to preach. I feel

like

singing it right now. Matter of fact, worship

is the highest expression of a believer's life

.

And I think the music that accompanies our

worship should be the highest and most

doctrinally sound and best suited for congreg

ational singing. Let me get to more of that in

a minute.

With secular music, there is a reflection of

the attitude of the society in the time

it was produced. Think about the sixties,

right? Listen, now listen, don't go out of

here and say,

"Brother Phillips said we ain't supposed to

listen to no secular music." I'm not saying

that,

okay? Don't get the preacher wrong here. What

I'm trying to emphasize here is that the music

of the redeemed expresses the unchanging truth

of the Word of God. It transcends culture.

What we've sung today transcends culture. And

that's why we've been singing hymns like

a mighty fortress since the sixteenth century.

Consider with me the absolute timelessness of

amazing grace. How sweet the sound, right? Tim

eless. Our music, folks, in the church is to be

different

because it's reflective of the truth of God

and the truth of God is that truth that never

ever

changes. And the miracle of regeneration and

the granting of the gifts of repentance and

faith,

the changing of our natures have given us a

new song to sing. And it's a timeless song.

I think it would be just so great. And I don't

know because I hadn't been to heaven and I don

't

believe none of them, people that write them

books about it and come back. But I just think

it's just

this is just the preacher's wishful thinking

speculation here. But just wouldn't it be

great?

If when we get to heaven, we just keep on

singing the same songs and hymns that we

sung on lower hymns. Imagine how it would be

to sing it there. Imagine mighty fortress up

there

with all the saints and the angels gathered

around the throne. Now, another little side

note,

but this will count for my time because it's

connected to the text. But before we get to

the

text, actually, there is a common

misconception in the church that music is

worship. For a lot of

people, when they hear the word worship, what

's the first thing they think about? They think

about

music. I mean, it's time for the worship part

of the service. The music part is often what

people

think about. But I want you to understand this

clearly. Music is not worship. Music is a

means

that we use to express worship. You understand

the difference? Something that music is this

emotional experience that you need to go

through and the right kind of music will just

stir up

that emotion all in you. And for sure, no

question about it, music will do that. We will

get emotional

when we're singing God's praises, but that in

and of itself is not necessarily worship.

Music will give expression to things like love

and honor and adoration, and it will give

expression to worship, but it doesn't produce

it. What does produce it is the truth that you

have

in your heart and the work of the Spirit of

God in you. That's what produces worship.

And also, some folks think, well, we've got to

get the music in our church that appeals

to the unbeliever, or they're going to get

bored with our music, or they're not going to

like

the way we do music. But it's my position, as

you know well, that the music that you hear

here

at Providence on Sunday morning and indeed the

entire worship service that we have here

itself

is not designed at all for unbelievers.

Nothing that we do here is for unbelievers.

Everything that we do here is for God's people

, God's redeemed, the family of God. I would

fully

expect an unbeliever to come into this door

and come into this church and sit down and not

particularly

care for our psalms and our hymns and very

much be just bored with what we do. No

different than when

many of them come here once, never to return

because of my preaching. How often, if we had

everybody that came here once, we couldn't fit

in this building, right? And I'm sorry,

you might need to get a better preacher. But

none of what we do here in the church,

in God's church, is for unbelievers. Look, if

somebody comes in here and the Spirit of God

gets ahold of him and saves them while they're

in our service, raise God. There is nothing

more

joyous that could possibly happen. But you can

be sure of this. We will never do anything

here in a

worship service. But what we think brings

glory to God and edifies his people and is

prescribed in

his word alone for how we do worship. That's

how we roll here, okay? In the Psalms, the

word "new"

appears many, many times. And guess what? The

word "new" in the Psalms appears alongside the

word

"song" more than any other word. Because as

new people, as I said, we have a new song.

And that's what Paul is getting at here in our

text. Just do a study on how much singing

and music is found in the Bible. Like, let me

give you an example. Look at Psalm chapter 33,

verses 1 through 3. "Sing for joy in the Lord,

O you righteous ones. Praise is becoming to

the

uproar. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre.

Thing praises to him with a harp of ten

strings.

Sing to him," here it is, "a new song. Play

skillfully with a shout of joy." You know what

that

means? God wants it loud. God wants you to

sing loud in the worship service. He wants,

in just in those verses right there, look at

it. He wants music that's loud, that's skill

ful,

that's joyful, and that expresses the new song

of the Christian. David says in Psalm chapter

40,

verse 3, "He put a new song in my mouth, a

song of praise to our God." Psalm 96-1,

"Sing to the Lord, a new song." Psalm 98-1, "S

ing to the Lord, a new song." Psalm 149-1,

"Praise the Lord, sing to the Lord, a new song

." Even Isaiah and Isaiah 42-10,

"Sing to the Lord, a new song." Do you get it?

Christians sing a new song because we are new

creations. Our music is not like the old song.

It never should be. Now, when we sing, we sing

the song of joy and praise and thanksgiving

for the gift of salvation that we've been

given,

the forgiveness of our sins, the promise of

eternal life, the imputation of the

righteousness

of Christ, none of which we deserve. So, just

remember this. Music and singing are not

worship,

they accompany worship. They are the means of

worship. All right, now let's get to our

checks.

Ephesians 5-19, look at verse 19. There are

three verbs here that carry the action.

Speaking,

singing, and making melody. Now, speaking here

is a very general word. Literally, it means to

say

or speak. Really, very literally, it's just

kind of like making sounds. It could even be

like the

sound of a bird chirping or a baby cooing. And

so, here, we are to make sounds to one another

,

to songs, hymns, and spiritual songs by

singing and making melody. So, we sing and

making melody here

literally, literally means this. To sing to

the accompaniment of an instrument or to play

an

instrument. How sad for centuries in the

medieval times of church, they didn't allow

any instruments.

That's what that word means. So, there's two

ways here in this verse to make sounds. With

the voice,

which is the greatest instrument that there is

. And with instruments, how blessed are we to

have

three great musicians in this church to

accompany our worship, right? So, singing to

the accompaniment

of an instrument is an expression of a spirit-

filled life. And that's what we get to do here

every

Sunday. Isn't it great? We get to come back

here every Sunday and do this. And we are

going to sing

forever around the throne of God. And what we

have here, guess what? Every Sunday is a foret

aste

of that glory that's going to go around the

throne of God with the angels for all time.

But that's a sermon for another day. Don't

have time to get to that one. Boy, I could,

though.

But go back to verse 19 and look at that first

phrase. Speaking to one another. Clearly, what

does

that mean? Believers. Speaking to other

believers. We sing among ourselves is maybe

the best way

to put it. This is a mutual ministry amongst

the saints that we have here on Sunday morning

. And

let me tell you, be very clear, this is not

entertainment up here. Too many churches have

entertainment. This is not entertainment. This

is not even evangelistic. As I said earlier,

none of this is for outsiders. It's among us.

It's among family members. Again, listen to me

. If an

unbeliever comes in here and God uses our

worship service to save them, pray to God. But

it's not

designed for them. This is not the seeker-

friendly church. It's the only way it's a see

ker-friendly

is because we understand the only people that

seek God are believers. No man seeks after God

in his natural condition. Romans tells us. So,

this speaking to one another in this verse is

clearly meaning that these actions, speaking,

singing, and melody, obviously, if we're

having to

speak to one another, it's done publicly in

the setting right here that we're in here

today,

the congregation of God's people. Look at

Hebrews 2.12. "I will proclaim your name to my

brethren in

the midst of the congregation. I will sing

your praise." Now, I'm going to come back to

that verse

at the end. You just hold on to that one. You

're filled with the Spirit. Listen, you can

sing praise

when you're all by yourself. You can't. There

's nothing wrong with that. I've been guilty of

that.

Now, I come out of one of these men. I mean,

we had 44 men up in here singing to the top of

their

lungs of the night. It wouldn't be unusual for

me to belt out, "I'm on my feet for a drink,

driving

down the road, man. I'm fired up." You know,

somebody looks over at me and like, "What is

this crazy

man doing?" Right? But listen to this. You can

't be obedient to sing in the midst of the

congregation

if you're not in a congregation on Sunday

morning. You know what that means in the Greek

? Go to church

every Sunday. That's the Greek. "Do not fors

ake the assembling of yourselves. Together is

not a

suggestion, folks. This is a grace that we've

been given to do this every single Sunday

morning

for the rest of our lives." Now, go back to

verse 19, singing and making melody. Look at

that next

phrase, "with your heart." This comes from the

heart. It's the overflow of a redeemed heart.

It's a

literal bubbling over of a redeemed, saved

Christian person. It's an expression of the

joy of the Holy

Spirit that indwells you. If it's not from the

heart of a believer, guess what? You can't

sing the way

that God wants you to sing. Period. You can

sing the same words and you can even sing them

loud.

But if they're not in saving faith and not

under the grace of having been given the gifts

of repentance

and faith, it's not the way God wants it to

sound. In fact, you're still in disobedience

to Him.

God, in fact, indicted the people of Israel

through the prophet Amos because the people

of Israel in that time period kept singing and

they were doing all their offerings,

but their hearts were all wrong when they were

doing those things. And look at what God says

through the prophet Amos in Amos 521 about

this situation. Hearts were wrong, yet they're

still

worshiping outwardly. This is God. I hate. I

reject your festivals. Nor do I delight

in your solemn assemblies. Then look at verse

23. "Take away from me the noise of your songs

.

I will not even listen to the sound of your

hearts."

Can you imagine God feeling that way about our

service? I hate your songs. I reject your

worship

service. Take away the noise of your singing

and get them instruments out of my hearing.

Can you imagine that? That's why when you come

to church to worship, you better come correct.

That's what that says to us. Have your heart

right when you come to Sunday morning worship

with God's people. God has given a high

priority to our singing because it is the

release again

of a redeemed heart. That's why I believe our

music by necessity has to be different from

the

world's music because the Spirit of God is so

unique. We should never try to mimic the world

in our worship service or the world's music.

Plenty of churches do that. God is nothing

like this world system. I tell you, when

anybody leaves out of here, if they don't know

anything

else, they should never be confused about the

fact that they just went to church.

Not some kind of concert. When you come to

church, again, you have to understand this is

not

a performance that we have going on up here

with our very talented musicians. And guess

what?

When you come to worship service, you are not

the audience. God is the audience, right?

And we're all singing to God. We're giving

worship to God. Look again at the end of verse

19.

Who is it that you're singing to on Sunday

morning? End of verse 19. To the Lord.

Think about when we sing the hymn. Oh, God,

our help in ages past. Our hope for years to

come.

Who are we talking to there? Who are we

singing to there? God. When we are singing,

there is

a fountain filled with blood drawn from

Emmanuel's veins. Who are you singing to?

Jesus Christ,

the one who gave his blood for you. The great

composer, my favorite classical

composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. He used to

sign his music with SDG. You've seen me put

that on many

of our church group texts. You've seen me put

that on many of our Facebook posts. What does

it stand

for in the Latin? One of the five great solos

of the Reformation. Soli, Deo, Gloria, to the

glory

of God alone. And that is our motive here in

all of our worship services. With everything

we do,

especially with any music, we have to first

ask the question, will it honor God? Will it

reverence God? Will it bring glory to God? And

that brings up another point we need to

address

here in Ephesians 19. With what do we sing?

Well, look again. Paul says it in Psalms, hym

ns,

and spiritual songs. Now, there's a difference

of opinion with the commentators on what these

things represent. And I'm not going to take

time to take you through all the different

opinions,

because really, there's not huge differences

between these things. But there are dist

inctions

between these three. And there's a lot of

overlap between these three. I mean, Psalms is

pretty

self-explanatory, right? The Old Testament

Psalm. We just sang, what was it? Psalm 145.

The Greek word, psalmos. It's also used the

idea as anthems to God. And that is really so

much of

what the Psalms are, right? And as you know,

we sing the Psalms that we read every single

Sunday.

I just said, Dale said the other night, in our

15 years, we've read through the entire book

of Psalms

five times in our 15-year history. When we get

to the end, we go back to the beginning. We do

the

same thing with the New Testament. I mean, you

ain't getting nothing but Bible up in here.

And the reason why we get you to stand up, and

it might be a little aggravating for the

visitor

that comes down. Wait, we just sat down. Why

we got to stand up back up again? There's a

reason

for that. It's not just because we want you to

stretch your legs. It's because even though

the

lyrics are the paraphrase of the Psalm, we are

together literally singing the word of God.

And it's time to stand up when we do that. So,

many Psalms speak of the nature and the work

of God,

and we have many hymns that do that as well,

as you know. So, like I said, there's some

overlap here

in kind of the definition, but next we have hy

mns. Now, what's the first thing you think of

when you hear the word hymn? Well, whatever's

in the hymn book is a hymn, right?

But the Greek word, humnos, really the general

meaning is a song of praise. Okay, and that's

very

general. John MacArthur says this, a hymn

means a song of praise and is generally

related to salvation.

So, right there, think of this distinction.

You got Psalms, great anthems to the nature

and the

work of God, and then you got hymns, songs of

salvation that are often connected to the

person

and work of Jesus Christ on the cross, like

the old rugged cross or at the cross, and

think of hymns

like that. And then next we have spiritual

songs, you see there. That's a very broad term

, of course.

The idea, though, is more toward personal

testimony to the spiritual work of God

in our lives. Again, there's overlap in these

distinctions, and I don't really think you sit

down and come up with a strict set of rules

for, you know, lining all these out, but for

spiritual

songs, think of, I'd rather have Jesus than

anything. I think that would qualify as a

spiritual song,

more personal testimony, right, about the work

of God in your life. So, I think these broad

categories

that describe what Paul is talking about here,

but just think of that mixture. Psalms, anth

ems to the

nature and work of God, hymns, songs about the

cross and salvation and the redemptions of

Christ,

and then great testimonies to what God has

done in our life. What a great mixture, right,

of things

for us to sing. All of those are the

expression of a spirit-filled heart, and that

's what Paul

noticed, list first under this category in our

text. So, we have a new song, and we have to

understand everything we do here in our

service, again, is very deliberate, very

thought-out,

very purposeful, every aspect. We don't just

sing hymns from the hymn book because we're

Baptist,

and that's the way the Baptist always do it.

We just sing it out the hymn book. That's the

way

it's always been done. There are multiple

reasons for why we sing the hymns. They are

theologically rich, boy, we're saying

something this morning, right, that are the

ologically rich.

They are God-centered. They are not man-

centered. They are Christ-exalting. They focus

on the glory

of God. Well, we were discussing Wednesday

night this subject, Rogel pointed out that the

hymns are

even designed for congregational singing, the

way that the melodies go, so everybody can

sing them.

I mean, if we spice up our songs to kind of

like the melody of one of the top 40 songs of

today,

not everybody's going to be able to sing that.

Not all of us have the same amount of rhythm

that

my dad has, okay? And then what winds up

happening, if you got songs like that, not

everybody can

sing them, so some people aren't even singing

at that point. And that happens. I've seen

that in

many churches happen where it's really a

performance and the guys up there, they're

going to town,

man, it sounds great, but nobody's really

singing. Nobody's, nobody's using that as an

expression of

worship. And when you're singing from the

heart and your spirit fills, it doesn't really

matter if

you can't sing in the right key. It don't

really matter. I mean, we're all singing in

together,

so it all kind of just blends together, right?

You're singing, folks, as an expression of a

spirit

filled heart in the midst of the congregation.

I mean, what activity during your week is

better

than that as a Christian? That's why you want

to know what happens, whether it's Roger Dale

or me

leading the music, we turn this microphone off

. We want to hear all your voices.

And we also want to spare you from our less

than Grammy-winning abilities as well, but

beside that,

I go to, I've been to churches where the mic

is turned up so loud on the music leader,

you can't hear the people. I want to hear

everybody singing in congregational worship.

Now,

I want to close by taking you to two verses

that really broaden this action of singing out

to the absolute highest level possible.

There's going to come a day

when the music of this world is going to stop,

and it's going to be no more.

I'm absolutely certain there's going to be no

music in hell, okay? Because that's a gift of

God's

common grace. There's no even common grace in

hell. Eventually, there's going to be a new

heaven

and a new earth, whatever eschatology you have

, we all get to the same place, new heaven, new

earth.

And there's going to be a lot of singing there

. And let me give you an example.

Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 17 in heaven. It

says this, "The Lord your God

is in your midst a victorious warrior. He, God

, will exalt over you saints with joy.

He, God, will be quiet in his love. He, God,

will rejoice over you with shouts of joy."

That's God

right there. In the Hebrew, as I said earlier,

also translated into the King James Version,

singing, loud, singing. Can you imagine? This

verse is telling us that God himself

in the midst of the congregation of all the

saints, of all the ages, and all the angels

gathered round is rejoicing over us with loud

singing. That is the ultimate solo.

God singing to us. I can't fathom it. Can you?

Well, guess what? There's one more.

It's not done. Hebrews chapter 2. And I quoted

this earlier. Now I'm going to give you the

full

context. This, of course, is Jesus speaking of

Jesus. And just to give a little run up the

ramp

in context, let's read verses 9. And the

primary verse here will be verse 12, speaking

of Jesus.

"But we do see him who was made for a little

while lower than the angels, namely Jesus,

because of the suffering of death, crowned

with glory and honor, said by the grace of God

,

he might taste death for everyone. For it was

fitting for him for whom are all things,

and through whom are all things, and bringing

many sons to glory, to perfect the author of

their

salvation through suffering. For both he who

sanctifies and those who are sanctified are

all

from one father, for which reason he, Jesus,

is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,

I will proclaim your name to my brethren in

the midst of the congregation. I will sing

your praise."

Can you imagine? I will proclaim your name in

the midst of the congregation. I will sing

your

praise. This is Jesus Christ, the God-man in

his glorified, resurrected body, singing

praise to

the Father in the midst of all the saints and

angels of all time. Can you, can you grasp

that?

No, you cannot. No, you cannot. But you can

grasp the tip of the iceberg of the concept of

it,

can't you? And that brings us to the table

here for today. This is the table of the one,

think

about it, the one who will one day sing praise

to the Father as we are there to witness.