Sermons

Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King sing praises, for God is King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise. Why Do You Sing? I. To speak of your faith (proclamation) II. To praise your God (praise) INTRODUCTION God’s people love to sing. I believe that point has been brought out by our service today – the enthusiastic way in which you sang the hymns and the large number of hymns suggested for this service. But did you ever stop to ask why you sing or why your favorite hymn is your favorite hymn? Do you like the tune? Do the words perhaps sum up your Christian faith in a beautiful way? Is it maybe the words with the tune that you like? The Psalms were the hymnbook of the Old Testament people and many of the Psalms speak of singing praises to God. If you look above many of the Psalms, they give instructions how the Old Testament Israelites were to sing them. Today e briefly turn our attention to one of those Psalms - Psalm 57:7-11. As I read it, I invite you to see if you can hear 2 good reasons the Psalmist gives us to sing. I. To speak of your faith (proclamation) [v. 7 & v. 10] “I just love to praise God.” That sums up well what I have heard many say about their favorites hymns which went into this service. And that is indeed a good reason to sing as David will remind us in a few minutes. But David gives God’s people an even more important reason to sing the hymns and songs we do – to share our faith with others. Sometimes we call this proclamation. Did you hear the first words of our text? “My heart is steadfast O God, my heart is steadfast.” In other words, David was expressing his faith and saying “God my heart is at peace because I know you. As with many of the Psalms, David didn’t just write them on a whim, they were written on the occasion of something in David’s life or the life of the children of Israel. Psalm 57 was written after the children of Israel had achieved yet another victory over their enemies and David wanted to give the credit where credit is due – to God. Some have asked out of all the vast number of Christian hymns which have been written over the centuries, why are there so many hymns which are not included in our hymnal? The editors of our hymnal followed the same idea David has – does a particular hymn clearly express and tell others the faith which I have? Think of the hymns which we have sung already in this service: “I know that my Redeemer lives” – we clearly told others that we believe that because Jesus rose from the dead, we will too. “When I survey the wondrous cross” – we clearly told others that it is the cross where our Savior died which gives us forgiveness of sins which we need. “Be still my Soul” was an opportunity to clearly tell others that we are at peace no matter what happens in life because we know that God is always on our side. David then goes on to say that when he (and we) look at all that God has done, there is only one response. II. To praise your God (praise) [v. 9 & v. 11] “I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples”. David says that when the child of God looks at what God has done, his heart is just leaping with the desire to sing out a song of praise. A sung thank-you to God for all that he has done. There is a proper place for praise in the life of the child of God. It comes after a realizing and understanding of the proclamation of what God has done for his people. CONCLUSION The story is told of an older gentleman who went to church on Easter Sunday morning very excited to hear the Easter message in word and song. It bothered him that sitting several seats down from him was a younger person who didn’t sing one word of the Easter hymns. After the service he went up to that younger person and asked why they didn’t sing at all. The younger person replied honestly “because I didn’t feel like it”. The older gentleman replied “I just wish that I could sing on Easter Sunday morning. You see, I have throat cancer and can’t sing the praise which are trapped in my heart”. As your God continues to give you the opportunity to sing your favorite hymns and all the hymns of worship, may they be sung as a proclamation of all that he has done for your as your God and Savior and may they come from a heart filled with praise to the one who has done all things well. To God be the glory! Amen.