Colossians 3:16

 

The Bible commands us over 50 times to sing, including in today’s verse. Let’s look at why. 

 

Big Idea: Worship through singing is a key ingredient in your spiritual growth. … When you’re cooking and following a recipe, you need the ingredients. Sure, some ingredients can be substituted with others, but there are key ingredients that cannot be replaced. For spiritual growth, worship is one of those. 

 

Four aspects of worship: 

  1. The goal of worship. … Obviously, the goal is to give God praise, but Paul points out another goal of worship. Worship helps us make the Word at home in us. As we sing, especially for songs that quote Scripture, the Word soaks into our soul. Song lyrics stay with us easier than memory verses. So, it’s critical to sing Biblical songs.
  2. The audience of worship. … We sing to God. But we also sing to those around us. As we worship together, hearing those around us worship encourages us to worship more. If no one else is singing with you, something is missing. Worshiping together brings a different energy. “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believers” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 
  3. The content of worship. … We are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Many of our hymns and worship songs quote the psalms. A hymn is a song of praise. Before the New Testament, Greeks would write and sing victory songs, or hymns, for their false gods and heroes. Christians adapted that idea to our beliefs and wrote praise songs to the one true God. A spiritual song is one that tells of the writer’s own experiences with mercy and grace and miracles. 
  4. The attitude of worship. … Paul says we should sing to God with gratitude. Why? We are blessed, blessed more than we know. There are many ways we are blessed: physically, financially, materially, salvation, and others. Some will have a different balance of those blessings than others, but we are all blessed beyond words, especially with salvation. 

 

Through the years and generations, popular music changes. Our general taste in music is different than it was 30 years ago. But no generation has ever just stopped listening to music. Music and singing is part of who we are. God made us and designed us to enjoy it. This is why worship is so important. Music has the power to transform, and music that glorifies God can transform us to be more like Jesus if we let it sink into our soul.