Guidelines for Christian Music

[0:00] songs tonight good songs tonight and just for the record there's only 12 days of christmas so you do put that on your calendar and figure that out that's when we start them get the green light don't you make him mad barbara don't you pick a fight with him yeah you'll lose all right let's get out this bibles tonight please open up your bibles and go back to where we were sunday psalm 95 place we'll kick off of and we'll be back in these psalms a good bit tonight here i wouldn't really call this quite a rabbit trail from a sunday sermon but it's close it's close to that it's really what got my mind and heart going this direction when we've uh came through on this last sunday and a few weeks before that we read and studied in this psalm how that we're not to approach god with a hard heart and then we went back and and looked at uh what david calls your fathers in the wilderness where they tempted god and and there's 40 years that god was grieved with that generation and we looked at some instances where their hardened heart was revealed and it was what what evidenced that hardened heart and uh tried to learn some lessons from that and apply it and make sure that we're not guilty of that now the um the admonition of the psalm was about coming before god and let's look at the first couple verses and read them again together again in verse one it says oh come let us sing unto the lord let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms for the lord is a great god and a great king above all gods in his hand are the deep places of the earth his the strength of the hills is his also the sea is his and he made it and his hands formed the dry land oh come let us worship and bow down let us kneel before the lord our maker for he is our god and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand now this is the the admonition here this is what what we want to get after is that coming before the lord and and throughout all of this we see this thing about singing and making a joyful noise and worshiping him and all and in all these psalms that surround 95 you're we're in a section of the bible that really emphasizes singing it's very strong it's a joy to read through this and you can quickly pick it up and there's more ways that we're instructed in worshiping god and these surrounding psalms and more language about it that we'll look at some of it tonight how about singing and worshiping and some things that maybe we could say that accompanies singing and worshiping the lord and so there's some things that we want to notice tonight that our song should do some things that our song should uh should accomplish maybe is a good word to say it's purpose the relevance of our singing whether it's here music in church or in life in your life why do we sing and what should we sing and to whom should we sing what who's the targeted audience of our song you often hear this line and i'm not a big big fan of it i'm not totally against it but you hear this line about that the song service is to prepare your heart to receive the word of god it's to prepare you for the message and i i i've already said this before and i don't want to this isn't like my hobby horse at all because i'm fine with having a song service the way it is and when it is but i think nothing beats prayer nothing it's not even close to prepare your heart to receive the word of god i know you may not even realize that but you try to do it a little bit and you'll see you'll notice it it is i mean you can sing you can come to church and be in these

[4:01] pews and be carnal you can sing and enjoy singing some people just have a song in their life they just they're gifted they they know music they see it they hear it they think it and they can sing and they can be as wicked as hell it doesn't mean that they're spiritual and opening their heart to god just because they're singing but praying getting on your knees before you come to church or when you come to church and finding a place and seeking god and saying lord i'm here to worship you i'm here to praise you i want you to receive something from me in this and if you'd be so kind as to feed me from the word of god and my heart's open to you and and when you humble yourself that gets you ready to receive i'm telling you there's a big difference but i'm not again i'm not against this thought of preparing your heart for preaching it's nice and singing does do something there but i think it's more to it and uh a song is not just to get you ready to you know for the message a song should probably stay in your heart as you leave church it should stay with you as you should continue to sing and to praise and to worship and we'll see some of that as well what i want to give you tonight is some simple thoughts from these psalms and i'm just going to call this some guidelines for christian music and this is by no means a thorough study on music and on christian music and the do's and the don'ts but it's just some things that i've been seeing and been studying through these psalms that they continue to pop out and i'll just give them to you and hope it helps you and if you need to clean up your music then maybe this will help and maybe you don't need that at all maybe you just need to be edified at what christian music is and so let's take a look at this um look at psalm 95 where we just began and the first thing i want you to consider here about christian music is that our song our song is to be unto the lord look at verses one and two here oh come let us sing unto the lord let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms now we're not going to stop there look at number 96 the next psalm in the first two verses there psalm 96 oh sing unto the lord who unto the lord a new song sing unto the lord all the earth sing unto the lord bless his name show forth his salvation from day to day now i'm just going to wear you out a little bit with this thought so be ready for it because the scriptures do this look at verse seven and eight give unto the lord oh ye kindreds of the people give unto the lord glory and strength give unto the lord the glory do unto his name well that's that thought there ought to strike you that word do give unto the lord the glory do unto his name think about your life is it giving the glory that is due unto him we could park there we could just stop and pray there for a while but who's it to go to to go to the lord bring an offering and come into his courts all right look at psalm 98 and verse 1 oh sing unto the lord a new song for he hath done marvelous things his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory and this whole psalm is another one about singing look at verses uh four through six make a joyful noise unto the lord all the earth make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise sing unto the lord with the harp with the harp and with the voice of a psalm with trumpets and the sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the lord the king now i understand a lot of these psalms have a prophetical view a prophetic forward thinking and look to the kingdom

[8:05] and to when christ is on the throne and when they're going to come before him like this verse we just read is and if you don't that's just um the doctrinal outlook on a lot of these psalms it's looking forward to the future and it's a literal application will be look at psalm 100 when they can come before his presence that's literal that's not just spiritually figurative devotionally psalm 100 verse 1 make a joyful noise unto the lord all ye lands serve the lord with gladness come before his presence with singing there's this thing about singing and it's all over these psalms look at psalm 101 actually i missed i wanted to read verse 4 enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise that's literal for that time but for us now get the idea that our song is to be unto the lord uh 101 verse 1 i will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee o lord will i sing one more 105 psalm 105 2 and 3 sing unto him sing psalms unto him talk ye of all his wondrous works glory ye in his holy name let the heart of them rejoice that seek the lord now do you get the idea i'm pretty sure we could dig in a little more and i could really go for a while on this very little thought of where our song is to be aimed at it is to be unto the lord however down here sinful man that doesn't know the lord they can't sing to the lord and he can't be glorified in them because they don't even know him so their song isn't about him their song isn't two things their song is about things that they do know or things that they do want and a few categories i thought of today is uh the song of the world is songs about of human relationships it's all it is it's singing about some blonde girl that they saw or singing about some brawny tough cowboy that they want to get to know or uh songs like the way you look tonight it's just this relationships horizontal relationships needing love missing you there's there's there are a dime a dozen there's thousands upon thousands of them of songs from sinners of just human relationships they write songs about human experiences they write songs down here they don't know anything about heaven and we don't either unless we get in this book and god reveals things to us but the lost sinner they don't heaven's not a thing to them it's not reality it's not their place they don't long for it so what do they sing about well all the rappers sing about the hood that they come from and tell you about how what that hood's like and why it's better than where they rep and all the rock and some of the musicians around here they sing about the city of angels and back in the days frank sinatra sings about new york new york just singing about places around here that mean nothing to god and they mean nothing to me because i've got a place he's prepared for me and in my heart i sing a different song i sing a song on jordan's storby banks i stand and cast a wishful eye i wish i could be there to canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie i'm bound for the promised land i'm not singing about new york or la i'm not singing about the hometown i came up in the ghetto i'm from the project i don't have nothing of that in me our song is to be unto the lord but the humans that we say humans the sinners in this world they sing about human experiences they sing about love they sing about pain they sing about the struggles in this life they also sing about human aspirations like success and wealth and all that's just down here because that's all they have they can't see above what's down here so they write

[12:10] their music they sing their tunes they entertain themselves and it's all carnal it's all down here and then there's just the outright filth that predominates the pop culture today of sex and drugs and money and fame and just various forms of vanity that's really all it is it's a glorification of vanity you could pretty much pick any song from the last 50 years and find what the substance of that song is and it's just in the in the eternal eye it's just vanity that's all it is now i'm not kicking every single song that isn't about god i'm not trying to kick it and tell you you're wicked i mean i'm not a hypocrite here i enjoy listening to christmas music and that's about it if it's not the december what third third i enjoy that stuff i'm not afraid of frosty the snowman unless i find out that that's some kind of like code for cocaine or something might be that's in this that's in the culture as well but i'm not kicking all that and saying but here's here's what i want you to see is is christian music our song is to be unto the lord so sayeth the scriptures and the new man come back to psalm 40 the new man has a new song and we read that in one of those psalms that there's a new song that we're to sing unto the lord the new man has a new song in his heart and we're going to see here that song was put there by god himself psalm 40 verse 1 i waited patiently for the lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry he brought me up also out of an horrible pit out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings and he hath put a new song in my mouth and what would that be even praise unto our god god puts a new song in the believer's mouth this looks like a pretty good picture of somebody who gets saved out of hell and gets saved out of a filthy life out of the miry clay and god establishes your goings and gives you a christian life to live for jesus christ and in doing that he makes a new creature inside of you and he puts a new song in your mouth and that song is going to be praise to him our song is to be unto the lord unto the lord because old things are passed away and all things are become new for the christian and god puts a new song in the new man because we're a new creature and we've been given new life and we have new hope we have new assurance uh some of these songs we just sang tonight they were they were these lines were ringing right out of them as i knew what we were about to get into we've been made members of a new body a new family if you will in jesus christ and we anticipate a change in us a new physical body a spiritual body rather in a new home and it's all because of jesus christ and so our song goes to him our song goes to him it ought to be unto the lord first our song a christian music it ought to be unto the lord secondly come back to psalm 137 psalm 137 our song is not for the lost it's not for the lost it's not for the ungodly or the heathen our song that god puts in us they don't know what it's like to be brought up out of a horrible pit they don't know what it's like to have god establish your goings and to put a hope inside of you they don't understand that and so our song is not to is not an attempt to relate to them

[16:12] and i'll show you this from the scriptures first our song is not for the lost and let's take a look at this passage these jews are taken out of their land and though their captors require of them mirth they want to hear them sing look at verse one by the rivers of babylon there we sat down yea we wept when we remembered zion they miss the god's country we hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof they said we're not playing music anymore and verse three for there that for there they that carried us away captive required of us a song and they that wasted us required of us mirth saying sing us one of the songs of zion and the response is how shall we sing the lord's song in a strange land it goes on to say if i forget thee o jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning if i do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if i don't prefer jerusalem above my chief joy um now the thought here i wanted you to get out of this is beyond just what the place here of these captives saying we don't have anything to sing about here in this strange land because we we don't want to lose sight of what god has done for us or or who we are and we're not here to entertain you is the bottom line i want you to get out of that the our song's not for the lost and it's not for their entertainment they're requiring them sing us one of your songs you know one of your church songs about your god just just play some some of that music for us they have no interest in how should we sing the lord's song in a strange land we're not here to entertain you this is a song for the lord the song of god's people is for him the glory is due to his name um there's an a air quotes christian artist out that's been out for several years now and probably one of the most popular in the contemporary christian realm lauren daigle and she's been on top of the christian contemporary charts for the last two years and then some i'm sure and she's written or performed or whatever several uh very uplifting style songs that are so generic it's too generic to determine if she's singing to the lord or who who's she's singing about in her music you can't tell would it be that hard to mention the name jesus of course it would be you'd lose a lot of popularity would it be that hard to even mention god would that be a crime if you're a christian contemporary artist it is a problem it's a big problem her songs are so weak and just this positive vibe that you can't tell if she's singing about god or some positive influencer like her father or boyfriend or some teacher or motivator or somebody that helped along the way so that kind of song could relate to so many people across the world now the reason i caught this caught my eye a while back was i saw some article or something that she was on jimmy fallon and she's down there performing for them and then i saw i looked it up today and saw that she performed her songs her generic christian songs where no one in the world knows she's a christian unless you look her up and find that out but her songs of um she's she played on the today show she's played for the world in another one of these late nights i forget if it was conan or somebody like that and the worst one is ellen degenerate degenerate she's she played for her i mean what what would born again christian would ever associate themselves with a woman like that somebody whose song isn't unto the lord i can tell you that the song she sings is for the lost

[20:12] because it's not a christian song not even close its purpose the christian our song is not for the lost it's not to entertain the lost and also it's not to convert the lost come back to psalm 92 and you need to need to have your understanding right on this called psalm 92 because so many of the lukewarm christian mentality today is that our our music is trying to reach the lost for christ that's not how it works you say where do you get that from the bible that's where i get it uh psalm 92 and i don't want to read through this whole psalm here it's uh you can see right from the beginnings about giving thanks to the lord singing praise and unto the thy name o most high come down to verse number six or verse five says o lord how great are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep a brutish man knoweth not neither doth a fool understand this in this passage about singing to the lord and glorifying him for his loving kindness in verse two and his faithfulness and the instruments and playing for how the lord's made him glad through his work and triumphant and all of this good stuff toward god he says you know what the the brutish man doesn't get this the the fool doesn't understand this you know why in today's words because he's lost he can't he can't get what our song is about it doesn't make sense to him and it won't the lost man cannot fathom and comprehend what we have with god this relationship that we have with god to be redeemed and to know you're saved and to know what it's like to be a sinner and to be lost and have those sins forgiven and to enter into the grace of god and to know his mercy they don't understand what that is that's just religious talk the only way to get them to listen to your music is to change your music and make it less about him and less biblical language of forgiveness and the blood of christ and heaven is your home and jesus christ is your savior and make it more about you've helped me you're good soft generic watered down garbage what we have with god is impossible to relate to the world and convey that spiritual truth to them now i'm going somewhere with this there's been a survey this is going back some years it's probably worse now but a survey of 130 christian contemporary artists music you know what they do and they asked them what's the purpose for your music and the number one response it wasn't even close the number one response out of 130 artists said their purpose of their christian music is to evangelize it's to get the gospel of jesus to the lost it's to get it to the world now that sounds good doesn't it it sounds noble to a bunch of lukewarm christians that aren't studying and reading and care about their bible it sounds like yeah you're doing you're doing your part you're trying you're talented you're using what god because the gift god gave you you're trying to win the lost unless you get in the word of god you find out there's not one place not one passage or verse in this book our authority that tells you to try to win the lost through song through music what if just what if god gave us the medium that he chose and chooses to use to get the gospel to the

[24:12] lost what if he what if he told us i mean what if there was a verse what if there was a verse in first corinthians chapter one that said it pleased god through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe this bible tells me the medium god seeks to please he's pleased to use is preaching you'll never find it music is for unto the lord that's what i'm getting at these guys are way off balance they're not in their bibles you know how you get the world to listen to your music you got to make it appealing to them ding ding ding you got to make it sound like something they want to listen to in order to get them to listen to your message that you're trying to get to across to them that's not the way god works that's not the way he works he never will but if you don't get in your bible you're just going to be like them just coming up with a plan or just going after your own lusts and desires and make a name for yourself and then pretend you know put jesus's name attached to it some guidelines tonight for christian music from the bible our song is to be unto the lord our song is not for the lost it's not to entertain them it's not to convert them and then thirdly you're in psalm 92 our song should be marked by certain qualities certain elements should exist to line up with the scripture so let's just take a peek at a few of them psalm 92 look at the beginning here the first three verses it is a good thing to give thanks unto the lord and to sing praise unto thy name oh most high to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night upon an instrument of ten strings upon a psaltery upon a harp with the solemn sound what's one of these things that ought to mark our song it ought to be thankfulness look at psalm 95 again we read this earlier oh come let us sing unto the lord let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms in psalm 100 we read most of it in verse 4 we read that enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise our song should be marked with certain qualities and one of them is thankfulness another element look at psalm 96 is as it says here showing forth his salvation verse 1 oh sing unto the lord a new song sing unto the lord all the earth sing unto the lord bless his name show forth his salvation from day to day one thing that one quality or or element that ought to be and exist in our song is showing forth or declaring his salvation we just sang heaven came down and glory filled my soul when at the cross the savior made me whole that's declaring i'm saved that that whole thing now i have a hope that will surely endure after the passing of time i have a future in heaven for sure hallelujah there in those mansions that's a blessing that's showing forth his salvation look at psalm 86 this one's good psalm 86 it's an element that ought to mark our song psalm 86 look at verses um 12 and 13 i will praise thee o lord my god with all my heart and i will glorify thy name forevermore why

[28:15] for great is thy mercy toward me and thou has delivered my soul from the lowest hell talk about showing forth salvation we got i think that song um i don't know if it's in this hymnal i think it is he brought me out of the miry clay it's right out of psalm 40 he set my feet on the rock to stay put a song in my heart uh to i messed that up a song of praise hallelujah one of the verses describes that thought of him getting me out of hell keeping me out of hell that ought to be an element marking our music is thankfulness to god showing forth his salvation another element and i won't go back through the scriptures here but we've read a few of them already it's is um our song should be marked by certain qualities like declaring his attributes and his nature and his works and that's all through these psalms if you haven't picked it out as we read them faithfulness goodness mercy honor majesty holiness greatness uh several of them call you to worship him because he's the creator in uh psalm 95 verse 5 96 verse 5 and so forth these declarations declaring outwardly who god is what he is for instance tonight holy holy holy lord god almighty that's our song nobody's gonna get on jimmy fallon's show and sing that one tonight nobody wants to hear that but they'll let somebody get up there and sing some weak watered down nonsense and dance around and mention that dressed like a you know what our song should be marked with certain qualities and some other things are associated in all these psalms and with this kind of singing and praising the lord some of the things that are associated with it is worshiping him is remembering his works is teaching others through psalm is declaring his glory giving glory and strength to him in psalm 96 bringing an offering before him now i want to take you to two places before we close to the pauline epistles here instead of just taking everything out of the psalms tonight go to ephesians 5 and colossians 3 and let me show you this from paul's words as well the same things we've been pulling out of the psalms this is good doctrine for you and i today our song is to be unto the lord it is not for the lost and it should be marked by certain spiritual qualities that come out of the scriptures all right ephesians 5 and just notice how this is written right here in this text in verse 18 through 20 and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the spirit notice that line for now and we'll come back to it but be filled with the spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the lord giving thanks always for all things unto god and the father in the name of the lord jesus christ goes on with submission now what you should notice here is verse 19 is that this song is not for the world speaking to yourselves that's the plural that's the church in psalms hymns and spiritual songs and notice it's unto the lord singing make melody in your heart to the lord is what our song is and then the spiritual qualities that exist in our music is giving thanks always for all things unto god now flip over to colossians chapter 3 and in colossians there's a whole lot more of these godly elements

[32:15] and virtues that exist and it spills over right into our music and I'll start in verse 12 colossians 3 verse 12 put on therefore as the elect of god holy and beloved bows of mercies kindness humbleness of mind meekness long suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as christ forgave you so also do ye and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness and let the peace of god rule in your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body and be ye thankful let the word of christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to the lord and whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the lord jesus giving thanks to god and the father by him now this is a repeat of ephesians but the one difference one major difference is where ephesians says be filled with the spirit colossians says let the word of christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom and then it goes right into the teaching and admonishing one another and it's an interesting thought that the words of christ need to dwell combining these thoughts together you can't be filled with the spirit without the word of christ this book guides us in all matters all matters it's our authority it's not well what does one brother like and what does one sister prefer and what do they like and what could make them bring them in it's the book is our authority and when the word of god dwells in us it guides us into every area including and tonight especially in music this book identifies the purpose of our music it identifies the parameters of what is acceptable unto the lord and if the word of christ isn't dwelling in you richly in all wisdom you're gonna be way off base when it comes to music amen there's no way you can be right with god in your music if the word of god is not dwelling in you richly in all wisdom this is where you get the mind of god from the book and so in the area of music wisdom comes from the word of god when it dwells in us we can teach and admonish one another and sing in these songs and hymns and spiritual songs with grace in your heart to the lord now the message tonight is about guidelines for christian music it came out of the psalms it came from that thought of where we were in the previous weeks of singing and coming before him with gladness and with a joyful noise and a heart that is open and not hard and soft to him but to get there church this thing here has got to be precious to you you can't you can't live your life without this book you can't go through your days without spending time in this book without longing for it running to it seeking for its truth to teach you how you can please him amen and side note to close if you don't have if you want to let's just throw this out there if you want some good godly music at least stuff that I feel is godly music

[35:55] I've got a ton of it I'd love to just dump it on you and let you have it I've got a ton of it on my computer you're all welcome to download and listen and it's stuff that's gotten me through some stages of life stuff that has been a blessing and help to me it's biblical stuff it's clean it's godly and you don't have to like what I like but I'm telling you it's way better than what's getting put on Jimmy Fallon I can promise you that and anyway we've gone far enough so I hope that's a help to you I hope it's a it stirs your heart toward what your music and your song ought to be toward him I'm not nitpicking on this stuff I'm trying to give you biblical truth that's all it is so let's be dismissed in prayer father father