Why do we sing together on Sundays or in Small Groups?
Is it just a warm-up for the preaching of the word or our time of sharing? Do we sing just to make us feel good before we get down to the serious business of preaching?
Paul tells us in Colossians 3:16:
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
As we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankful hearts to God, the Word of Christ dwells in us richly. Paul doesn’t exhort us to sing so we feel good or have an emotional experience, not that those are wrong.
But Paul exhorts us to let the Word or the teaching of Christ and about Christ sink into our hearts and abide among us richly. To become part of the fabric of our thinking.
We’re to drink in the doctrine of Christ in all its richness and fill our thoughts and hearts again and again as we sing together.
This means our worship songs should overflow with truth about God and Christ, who he is and all he’s done for us in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and all our great High Priest and Mediator continues to do in us through his Spirit.
Our worship songs should focus on Christ, not us.
As we meditate on Jesus, thankfulness will be the natural outflow.
