The Mighty Ministry of Song
How Praise Shapes the Saints
Seeing, Savoring, and Singing | Dallas
Audio Transcript
We’re going to look at one verse in Colossians 3. You don’t need to open your Bible because it’s right there on the screen and we’ll be working with it. Before we read it and then work on it, I want to put the verse in a wider context, which Marshall has already wonderfully begun by referring to the night when Jesus was betrayed. They sang a song as they headed out to do battle with the devil in the garden of Gethsemane. That was probably the greatest battle that’s ever been fought, and it was preceded by a song, a hymn.
Armed with a Song
Well, the same thing happened in the Old Testament once, in 2 Chronicles 20. The Assyrians had come against Israel, and Jehoshaphat was desperate for God’s help. The way he defeated them was with the choir — with song. Let me read it to you. In 2 Chronicles 20:20–21, it says,
And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” And when he had taken counsel with the people . . .
We have a battle going on here, and he’s appointing singers.
. . . he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Then it says,
And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. (2 Chronicles 20:22)
It’s over. Now I just wonder how you’re going to hear this verse because I wonder how you think about singing. I think about singing like that. It defeats enemies. I think there is more spiritual power on Sunday morning when people from their hearts corporately are praising God than we can imagine. Demons are falling. Satan is falling out of the sky like lightning when we are singing.
I’ve been involved in one exorcism in my life with a demon-possessed woman. It was terrifying. I didn’t know what to do. I had no training. You can’t be trained for that. But she was clearly not the woman the others said she was. I said, “That’s not her. That’s not Midge.” Her face was contorted. She had a deep, growling voice. She has this little penknife and was threatening people. But the bold men and women in this dorm room wouldn’t let her out. They called me on the phone and said, “Come fix this.”
I got my friend Tom, and we went over there. Do you know what happened? I had my little Bible. This was before cell phones. I just started reading Romans 8. I didn’t know what to do. I said the word of God. I thought, “Jesus defeated the devil in the wilderness with the word of God, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just read the Bible.” And she would knock the Bible out of my hand and scream at me, and I’d pick it up and start reading again. And then someone started singing: “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.” And then they added other words.
I think this is part of what is meant by “spiritual songs” in Colossians 3:16. It says “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” — songs given by the Holy Spirit in the moment for the power. But she went berserk, fell on the floor, flopped around like a fish, screamed for Satan not to leave her, and then went unconscious. It happened under the song. I’ve never been the same since. I am not playing games when we talk about songs here. I’m not playing games when we talk about singing.
I think I owe my marriage to Sunday-morning worship. I was a pastor for 33 years. I would be sitting in the front pew, and Noël and I haven’t talked for a day. We’re angry. It’s like a knot inside; you can’t get rid of it. You want to rip it out. You hate it. I’m supposed to preach in thirty minutes, and we sing. How many times has the Lord melted me? It’s like a demonic thing that’s physical, and yet it’s emotional, and he melts it with songs. I think, “What am I doing? What am I doing with this woman? Why am I thinking this way or feeling this way?” Then I’m able to be humble and apologize.
You just need to know when I’m working on this one verse that I’m not thinking of singing as a kind of fun thing or an emotional thing we do on Sunday morning. I’m thinking of major power.
Swimming in a Bottomless Ocean
The word of God — “the word of Christ,” as it’s called in Colossians 3:16 — is like an ocean without shores and without a bottom. We will swim in it forever, and we will never reach the shore. We will never get to the bottom.
This one verse needs sixteen things to be explained about it. It just happens to be verse 16. That’s a total coincidence. It says,
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.
The last part is usually translated in your version “with thanksgiving.” I’m going to pull rank on you here, though I don’t like doing that. I translated it “by grace” because en chariti is used six times in the apostle Paul, and it’s always translated “by grace” or “in grace” except here. And I said, “Why’d they do that?” Thanksgiving is wonderful; it’s great. But anyway, I think there are sixteen things that need explaining.
More Than Allowing
Of course, let and dwell are all one verb. We don’t have a third-person imperative in English; Greek does. We have second-person imperative: “Get up out of your seat!” I’m saying, “You, stand up.” We all talk like that. We don’t know how to do third-person imperative, and that’s what I said to Noël this morning. I said, “Can you think of anything in English that comes close to a third-person imperative?” It’s translated two hundred times in the New Testament with let. “Let the word dwell . . .” And here’s the problem. The word let in English almost always sounds like allow, right? It sounds like “allow the word to dwell,” but that’s not what it means. It doesn’t mean allow the word to dwell.
There’s a difference between when somebody knocks on the door, and you say to your friend, “Let them in.” That means, “Allow them to come in.” But at the Olympics, they say, “Let the games begin.” What does that mean? I think that’s about as close as we get to a third-person imperative: “Let the games begin.” You’re saying that the games ought to begin. It’s time right now for the game to begin. That’s what we have here. This is saying, “It is fitting, right, and appropriate that the word dwell in you — in your church, in your small groups, in your family.” It’s tough to get the third person across, but there it is. “Let the games begin.” “Let the word of Christ dwell . . .”
Word of Christ
What about the “word of Christ”? How rich is that? Let me jump around now for a minute. Let’s put meat on the term “word of Christ.” Let’s go to chapter 4. It says,
At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison . . . (Colossians 4:3)
The first thing I’m going to unpack is to say it’s the mystery of Christ. It has been kept secret, and now it’s revealed. We’re now on Colossians 1:27:
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And oh, it is full of riches. That filled it out a little bit more. Let’s go to Colossians 2:1–3:
I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The “word of Christ” is the mystery of Christ. It’s Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is Christ himself full of treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And here’s one more. In view of all that, Paul says in Ephesians 3:8,
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ . . .
So, with all of that feeding into “word of Christ,” I would say the word of Christ, at its core, is the gospel, the mystery of the Son of God coming into this world, full of grace and truth, full of wisdom and knowledge and unsearchable riches. And the rest of the Bible — around the gospel — is there to protect the gospel, explain the gospel, apply the gospel, and so on. Very simply, I think if you want to obey this tonight in the car on the way home, think Bible. The word of Christ, at its core, is the gospel, and the rest of the Bible is filling it out. Let that be dwelling among you.
Where the Word Lives
That brings us to this word dwell. What an interesting word for the Bible, for the word of God, for the gospel. Why did he use dwell? It’s not a word for staying overnight in a motel. It’s habitation. You live there. If you have a small group, a Sunday-school class, or a worship service, what lives there? What’s at home there? What’s always there? The word of God is always there; the word of Christ is always there; the gospel is always there. We are a Bible-saturated people, right? I hope we are.
And as it dwells there, it is in you. It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you.” That has two meanings, doesn’t it? I’m not sure which it is. One is among you (as in, the group), and the other is in you (as in, your heart). In Greek it can be used both ways. Here’s one usage:
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)
That’s the same phrase. Here’s 1 Corinthians 6:19:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?
That’s the same phrase. Paul knows that ambiguity exists, right? He’s not stupid. He knows when he writes that it’s ambiguous, because in Greek it goes either way, just like in English it goes either way. And he didn’t fix it with precision.
When that happens, I just kind of step back and say, “Okay, I’m not going to be dogmatic that it means this one, not this one.” I don’t think he would like me to say that because he left it open. There are indications in the text that he’s meaning both, right? In your heart, he wants you to sing, and he wants you to sing to one another. So, we have indications that this word dwelling in you can mean both of those. It’s like what is happening in this room right now. You’re hearing it corporately. It’s happening. This text is happening among us, and I hope it’s in your heart. You’re loving it — this text, this word of Jesus.
Riches Given Richly
“Let [it] dwell . . . richly.” That too has two meanings, surely. One would be all those riches we just saw in the word of Christ — the unsearchable riches of Christ. So, let the word dwell richly because the word is so rich. Let the word be the riches among you.
“Wisdom is the well-chosen, well-expressed, well-timed word of Christ.”
A very practical application would be that, in your small group, you’re going to teach and admonish one another with this word. You could do that academically, or you could do it richly. You can speak of the word as a frog on the biology table to be dissected, or you can speak of the word as a diamond that you just discovered this morning, and you would like to show some new things about it to people. That’s the richness of the word. That’s what I would plead for you to do.
When you have your devotions, ask the Lord, “Show me riches; show me value; show me preciousness. Touch the valuing part of my being so that when I walk out of my home and talk to people, I don’t just say facts about my Jesus, but I say valuative statements about my Jesus.”
We sing that he is worthy. Good grief, that word is common. There’s a reason for that. We love to talk about the riches of Christ.
But there’s another meaning, and you see it here in 1 Timothy 6:17. It says,
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
How would you paraphrase that with another word? He provides you richly with everything to enjoy. I would paraphrase it by saying he provides you with lots of it. You live in Texas, in America, in the West — you have lots of everything to enjoy. If you were in Haiti right now, life would be different. It’s different in Chad, Congo, or in prison in Afghanistan, like one of my friends.
But here we are in this room with air conditioning, food in our stomachs, clothing on our bodies, running water, refrigeration, and 911. Good night. He has done this. He has provided us richly, and oh how our lives should be overflowing with thankfulness and generosity. Let the word of Christ dwell in you by drawing out of its riches and by having lots of it.
I measure churches by how much Bible I hear. Is it in the prayer? Is it in the welcome? Is it in the singing? Is it in the preaching? Is it in the farewell? Are the people speaking it when they greet you? Is it coming out of people’s mouths? And if there’s no Bible, I say there’s sickness there. There’s trouble there. These people are living off another vine. So, let it be rich.
I believe that the main thrust of the dwelling here is in singing, okay? I don’t think it’s exclusively singing. He says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom . . .” I think he means teaching and admonishing one another with all psalms and hymns. In other words, this teaching and admonishing has a focus of singing with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. But I don’t think it’s limited to that. That’s why I’m saying this can be small groups, Sunday-school classes, or family where you might not yet have sung this word. It should be spoken horizontally.
In All Wisdom
I think this “wisdom” can apply to how we sing and how we talk. Wisdom is so crucial in declaring. What does wisdom mean? How do you let the word dwell in wisdom? Here’s Colossians 4:5–6:
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
Wisdom is the well-chosen, well-expressed, well-timed word of Christ. And timing is so crucial. Part of wisdom is knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, and we all know people who don’t get that at all. They say the wrong thing all the time, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and they hurt people. I mean, some of those people are mentally disturbed, and we just love them. We tolerate them, and they’re just awkward. Every church has people like that.
How you treat people like that is a measure of your spiritual maturity. If you have to run away from people like that because they make you feel dumb or scared or whatever, then you’re not grown up yet. But ordinary people make mistakes too, and here would be an example:
Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart
is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day,
and like vinegar on soda. (Proverbs 25:20)
Have you ever poured vinegar on soda? It bubbles; it fizzes; it makes a little smoke. It’s not good. It doesn’t smell good either. Don’t sing at the wrong time. Don’t sing the wrong song.
I’ll give an illustration here. I don’t want to offend any worship leaders, but I probably will anyway. I love the song “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman. It has the bridge that says, “He gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say, ‘Blessed be your name.’”
Now that is a quote from Job 1:21, and he just lost ten children. They’re dead. The second time I ever heard that song was in a worship service where a missionary had come home from the Middle East to bury their child who was stillborn. They were in service for the first time, sitting over there at the right-hand side, and I was getting ready to preach. We were singing that song, and their hands were stretched out. We’re saying, “He gives and takes away; he gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say, ‘Blessed it be your name.’”
Now, I have been in services where there doesn’t seem to be the slightest clue what they’re saying because the drums are just driving that thing — thump, thump, thump. Don’t you know what you’re saying? That’s totally inappropriate. So, all you worship leaders who have done it that way, don’t do it that way anymore. When you get to, “He gives and takes away,” think, “Ten children died yesterday.” It’s a beautiful song. I love that song. Be wise. Leaders should be wise.
A word fitly spoken
is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. (Proverbs 25:11)
Those are songs well-chosen, at the right moment. We had this awful crisis at Bethlehem in 1994 with horrible immorality. We lost two of our staff members. Our church bottomed out and didn’t grow for four years. It was just awful. It was the lowest season of my life. I asked Jim Bloom the Sunday after we made that horrible announcement, “Please sing for us, ‘There Is a Balm in Gilead.’” The tune is right; the words are right. “There is a balm in Gilead; it makes the wounded whole.” I think I called that one right. There are words that are just right at the moment. It’s in wisdom.
Here’s one more about wisdom. James 3:17 says, “The wisdom from above is first pure.” I’ve been thinking a lot about that because I have decisions in front of me about what to write and how to prioritize my time. I’m an old man. I don’t have a lot of time left. I don’t want to waste it. So, I’m trying to make these decisions about what to do, and that just clobbered me the other day. Are your motives pure? You’re trying to make decisions about this and this, and here’s one thing drawing you out toward that. Is that a pure thing? Is that pure? Is there vanity in that? Is there fear in that? Wisdom is a glorious thing, and it has many dimensions. We are to let the word of Christ live (dwell) in us richly in all wisdom.
Teaching and Admonishing
Now, what about “teaching and admonishing”? What’s the difference? Teaching and admonishing. And this is everybody — everybody is teaching and admonishing one another, not just preachers. This is about everybody in the commons after the service teaching and admonishing one other. You’re in a small group teaching and admonishing one another.
Now, let’s go ahead and include “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” So, this teaching and admonishing one another is with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. I’m going to leave behind the ordinary conversation where this happens, which I think is a legitimate application of this text, and I’m going to talk about what this part means. We’re going to teach one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and we’re going to admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. What does that mean? How does that happen? I think the difference is that teaching explains things — it helps you to move from a lack of understanding with more understanding — and admonishing says, “Do it.”
The note of urgency is added to the teaching with the word admonish. I think all teaching should be admonishing, and all admonishing should have elements of teaching in it. So, how do you do that with song?
Teaching Through Song
I’ll give you an example. Several years ago, we were singing, and I was one of the speakers at The Gospel Coalition. There were about eight thousand people there, and I went back to my motel room, and I wrote two new verses for “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” It even got into Christianity Today as a big controversy. They said, “Oh, Piper is rewriting a great old hymn, what a horrible thing.” I love the hymn. I am not replacing the hymn. I just want to use the tune; that’s all. I don’t know how to write tunes; I can write words. I wrote these lines to teach, and I gave it to the worship leader and said, “Can you sing my song? Because I’m going to preach this.” It said,
I could not love Thee, so blind and unfeeling;
Covenant promises fell not to me.
Then without warning, desire or deserving,
I found my Treasure, my pleasure in Thee.
Now there is nothing very shocking about that. But the next verse said,
I have no merit to woo or delight Thee;
I have no wisdom or pow’r to employ.
Yet in Thy mercy, how pleasing Thou find’st me.
This is Thy pleasure: that Thou art my joy.
That’s complicated. And if you get that, you get my whole theology. That’s Christian Hedonism. God finds you pleasing if he is your pleasure. That’s an example of what I mean by teaching with songs. Every song teaches either bad or good or blah. After the pastor, I think the worship putter-together is the most influential person in the church. That person is deciding what hundreds of people are drilling into their brain Sunday after Sunday about the nature of God, the nature of Christ, the nature of sin, the nature of redemption, and how to live the Christian life. That’s all going in with songs, for good or for ill. So that’s an example of teaching.
Admonishing Through Song
Here’s an example of admonishing. I wrote this too. I could use other hymns, but I’m showing you how contemporary writers can teach or admonish. We had an inauguration of a new president at Bethlehem College and Seminary two weeks ago, and I preached for fifteen minutes, and that was my point right there. I said,
Hold fast the word unchanged and true;
Let insight, joy, and song be new.
It’s a rhyming couplet in iambic tetrameter. So, I prepared the sermon, which was fifteen minutes long, as an admonition to the new president, and that was my point. I said, “I want you to hold fast the word, Brian. I want nothing in the Bible ever to be changed. I want us to believe it’s true forever and ever. Do you want to do something new? Let insight, joy, and song be new.”
Don’t change the Bible. One book, old book, great book, best book, God’s book — don’t change it. Hold on to it. But oh my goodness, how many new things can you see from this book? How many new songs? How many new joys can you get from this book? Then I thought, “I have 24 hours. I’m going to write a song to go with that.” So, I wrote a song, and we sang it. I gave it to Chuck, the worship leader. I said, can we do this? He had half a day. I said, “It’s easy. I just want to use the Old Hundredth.” Here are the lyrics:
God’s Truth stands like his holy Name,
No origin, nor e’er became,
Eternal, absolute, the same,
Forever one in sum and aim.Yet oh how new and fresh the taste!
Linger with him and make no haste.
Through every line the sweet is traced;
May we forever so be graced.Come every scholar, poet too;
Keep ancient truth and bliss in view.
Hold fast the word, unchanged and true;
Let insight, joy, and song be new.
Almost every line is admonition, right? I’m telling people what to do, right? That’s admonition. There’s a lot of teaching in there, but it’s an admonition. That’s what I think is meant by “teaching and admonishing one another . . . [with] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”
The word psalms is used for the psalms of the Old Testament in the New Testament. The word hymns is used for what Jesus sang before he went out to the garden. And the word spiritual songs is used for the songs in the book of Revelation. I just think they overlap. I think if you want to apply this in your church, you’d say psalms are what’s in the Bible; hymns are historic, accepted, solid hymns; and spiritual songs are fresh expressions, whether immediate — like when the exorcism was happening and they were just making up songs as we went along — or somebody writes a song 24 hours before you sing it in a worship service.
Singing by Grace
Next, he says, “[By grace singing] in your hearts to God.” Let’s just put all that together. Whether it means “with thanksgiving” or “by grace,” both are theologically true. I think “by grace” means, “All worship leaders be aware. Nothing of any spiritual significance is going to happen here unless God shows up.” This is grace. This is all grace. You can work your tail off to get these songs ready and memorize the lyrics and get the music just right, and nothing will happen unless grace comes down. So, depend on grace every Sunday.
And you’re singing “in your hearts” and “to God.” Now here’s the interesting thing. This “one another” here clearly means that the songs are going horizontal, right? And “in your heart” means it’s originating within, right? That means it’s both horizontal and vertical. I don’t think the point is that some of our songs are horizontal and we sing them to each other, and some of our songs are vertical and we sing them to God. I don’t think that’s ever true. I think it’s always both. Corporate singing is always both. Some of them use words that are directed straight to God, and some of them use words that are directed straight to each other. But if you’re singing straight to each other in a worship service, guess who’s listening? God. And he means for you to think about that and to honor him by what you are singing.
So, here’s one that would be to God: “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.” That’s a song directly to God. That’s a prayer. Here’s another little thing to get off my shoulders. I long for services that flow without a lot of interruption from human beings. If you finish this song, and the next thing in your order of worship is a prayer of praise or pastoral prayer, don’t say, “We just sang; now let us pray.” Don’t do that. You’re already praying. You don’t need to say, “Let’s pray,” because you were praying, weren’t you? Lots of people go through liturgical motions and do not know what they’re doing.
That song is a prayer. It’s directed to God. And this one here is to man: “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” That’s totally horizontal, except that God is listening, and oh how he is magnified by that great song. Here is one that is both:
But as I ran my hell-bound race,
Indifferent to the cost,
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross.
And I beheld God’s love displayed;
You suffered in my place.
You bore the wrath reserved from me;
Now all I know is grace.
Hallelujah! All I have is Christ.
So, what will we say?
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.
It’s multidirectional all the time. God is always listening, and the people next to you are always listening. Ministry is happening in multiple directions. I think singing is very, very powerful.