When God Became My Song

As I prayed about tonight and thought about the theme for this event — Why We Sing — I thought about my local church, Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. I work full-time at Desiring God, but I serve as a nonvocational elder, one of eight elders at our church.

I won’t get into all the details of our last couple months, but back in January we had a group of angry protestors invade our service on a Sunday morning. It was a terrible scene (some of you may have seen it on the news). They yelled and chanted until the police came, and we had to send our people home. The pastors huddled up and made the decision, before we left the building, that we were going to gather our people again that evening to finish the service (we don’t typically have an evening service). And I’ll never forget that night. I’ll remember a lot of things — the sermon Pastor Jonathan gave, the prayer Pastor David prayed, all the hugs and tears before and after. I’ll remember a lot of things, but what I’ll remember most is the singing.

Cities Church sang like we have never sung. It was loud, and it was heavy (earnest and serious), and it was unshakably happy. And as I thought about that night again this week, I asked, “Why did we do that?” In a moment like that, with all the stress and uncertainty of what just happened and what might happen next Sunday and the Sunday after that, why would we sing?

“If you know Jesus as Lord and Savior — if you really know him — it’s not enough to just say it, is it?”

You know why, most of you. That’s why you’re here. We sang to say to God, “We trust you (even now, even after all this). And we will follow you and obey you (no matter the cost; no matter how much inconvenience or opposition comes). And we love you, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. You are our treasure in the field — and you are our treasure in this valley. And you’re worth anything and everything we have to endure to know you and worship you.” That’s why we sing, right?

We could just get together every week as churches and say that we believe in Jesus and that we’ll obey him. We could just spend this whole night reading Bible verses and reciting creeds. But if you know him as Lord and Savior — if you really know him — it’s not enough to just say it, is it? No, we have to sing.

Our Savior and Song

We see this all over the Bible in verses like Isaiah 12:2. (I thought this would be a good place to start and anchor our singing this evening.)

Behold, God is my salvation;
     I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
     and he has become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)

“The Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” Why do we sing? Four big reasons in that one sentence.

1. He’s our salvation.

“God is my salvation.” He saved me. I was dead in my trespasses and sins and unbelief, and he pulled me out of the pit. He sent his Son to die for me on the cross and saved me from sin and death and the hell I deserved. He bore our sins against him. Are you battling guilt or shame or persistent temptation? We have a Savior! We sing because he saved us.

2. He’s our Lord.

“I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength.” This Savior is Lord. He saved us, and he rules over us. All of our allegiance is his, and any allegiance we have to anyone or anything else is only for his sake. We sing because he’s Savior, and we sing because he’s Lord. We sing to say, “We belong to you.”

3. He’s our strength.

“I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength.” He doesn’t just save us and then leave us, but he saves us and then stays and helps us. He never leaves or forsakes us, and he makes sure, minute by minute, that we have all that we need. And he works in us, by his Spirit, everything he asks us to do or say or sacrifice. Are you feeling weak? If you trust him, he will be your strength.

4. He’s our song.

“The Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” He’s not just our forgiveness and direction and help, but he’s also our song — our joy. We’ve found more joy in him than we’ve found everywhere else combined. And if you haven’t experienced that kind of joy in him yet, I have good news for you. I’m so glad you’re here. Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” And when he says “in your presence,” he’s not just talking about joys and pleasures and gifts beside him or around him, but this fullness and foreverness is the joy we have in him.

Psalm 43:4: “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” He is the joy. He is the pleasure. His presence is paradise — and it would be so even if everything else we loved and wanted was taken away. The apostle Paul says,

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. (Philippians 3:7–9)

He’s my song! So, is he your song?

God Makes Heaven Happy

I remember when Jesus became my song. I said I would come back to how Desiring God changed my life. It was a book.

“God’s presence is paradise — and it would be so even if everything else we loved and wanted was taken away.”

I had grown up in a Christian home with loving Christian parents and had been a Christian myself for a number of years by the time I went to college. I read the Bible and prayed most days. While I was in school at Wake Forest, I was part of a faithful Bible-preaching church and was surrounded by mature and intentional Christian friends. I was even doing ministry among high school students, sharing the gospel and discipling them in the faith. And then, in a moment (in a sentence), God suddenly flooded all of that — everything I knew and felt about Jesus — with new meaning and color.

To get there, though, God had to confront me first. When I first read these sentences, they tackled me where I sat and they’ve never let me go.

Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. (John Piper, God Is the Gospel, 47)

The gospel is the way to get people to God. The gospel is the way to get me to God. It was the kind of discovery that is both devastating and thrilling. Devastating, because you realize just how much you’ve missed until now. Thrilling, because you have stumbled into a land you’d never seen before, an ocean you’d never sailed before, a favorite meal you’d never tasted before.

This God is not just the only way to heaven; he is what makes heaven worth wanting. He is the great meal. He is the wild and wondrous ocean. He is the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price. He’s our Savior, our Lord, our Strength. And he has become our song.