You may also open your copy of the scriptures to Colossians chapter 3. I'm grateful for Brian and his reading this morning and also the emphasis on the fact that this is a corporate or collective you. This is a plural you. It doesn't usually come out in the English language. I suppose we'd have to adopt some sort of dialect or, you know, put in y'all in every passage here. We don't have maybe you guys. Is that how we say it up here in Minnesota? You guys? Colossians chapter 3. Our focus today is going to be on the verse 16. Colossians chapter 3 verse 16. This is the word of the Lord. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, anytime we do come to your word, we have high expectations that we will be transformed into the image of Christ. Lord, I pray that today it would be a day that does change our minds, change our hearts, it changes our attitudes, it changes our activities to conform to your word, to conform to the commands of Christ. He has given us the duty, the objective duty to disciple, teaching, that we would teach each other all of your commands, but not just teach each other all of your commands, but that we would teach to observe, to obey all of your commands. So Lord, as we come to this command in verse 16 of Colossians chapter three, I pray that you would change us, mold us, shape us to the image of Christ for the good of your people and the glory of your name. We know that you will help us do this because when we ask a good thing in your will, it will be done. Therefore, we pray according to the glorious name of Christ, amen. The goal today is to examine the dual purpose of corporate singing. The dual purpose of corporate singing. Our purpose is both horizontal and vertical in nature. The purpose is horizontal and vertical in nature. What do you think about when you consider the reason why we sing corporately? What is the purpose of coming together and singing together? When that question is posed to you, or posed to a number of people, I would think, you know, perhaps it's just a private time for me and Jesus. You know, we turn the lights down low and we turn the music up. Here, we don't do that. That's for sure. It's bright in here. It's nice. I like it. You'll see why in a moment. But my experience has been, in many churches, the lights get turned down low. Maybe there's a fog machine. The music is really loud so that you can't hear anybody else. And it's just a time for you and Jesus to have, you know, an intimate moment. Maybe it's just a filler in the service. The people expect it, so we might as well have it. We better have singing because that's how some people connect with God. They don't connect through the sermon. So they come for the worship, they come for the singing together, but then they kind of tune out during the sermon or some other aspect of the service. And so they really just need to sing together with other people. Maybe it's just something cool to reach unbelievers. Obviously, that's not our objective. I could say that because I lead the worship here often. Or maybe, more commonly thought, it's just to prepare our hearts for the true teaching that's going to happen through the preaching of the word. So the songs are all really just a preparation for something greater, something more important, something that's going to really impact us. or it's just simply to praise God. That's all it does, is it's just a praise to God. Some of these things are way off. There's definitely not the purpose. Like I can tell you right now, the purpose of Corporate Song is not to try and reach out to unbelievers because If we're trying to be so professional that we're gonna try and compete with like Taylor Swift to try and reach unbelievers and bring them into our church service, we are going to fail and it's going to be very, as the kids say, cringe. And me even saying the word cringe is probably cringe. So therefore, really, our objective is not that we're just trying to reach unbelievers with something that they already like to get them into our church. So we offer them a song that's hip. And I know that using the word hip is cringe, and so is using the word cringe. Some of it is legitimate. The purpose of corporate worship is to praise God. The Psalms are full of that, calling us to worship God, to praise Him. That is extremely legitimate. But corporate worship has so much more range, it is fuller than just a moment between you and God. Corporate worship is so much richer than just, this is my time to sing and adore God. You know, we could do that at any point in our day. We could have a personal time with God at any point of our day. And in fact, that's commanded of us. That is necessary. But, as we see here, and as Brian pointed out, what's happening here is a corporate setting. Corporate worship. What's the purpose of corporate worship? That's what we're trying to understand. And the purpose of corporate worship is more than just a vertical worship to God. There is a horizontal focus in our corporate worship. Before we get too much further, let's consider the context that we are in. We're not preaching through the whole book of Colossians. We haven't been, so a little bit of just short context. Usually, Paul has two major sections in his letters. The first section is typically very, has a lot of implications of the gospel. It's doctrine heavy. It talks a lot about Christ and our position in Christ, and that's no different than here in Colossians. He is setting a foundation that we are in Christ positionally. He talks about who Christ is, what he's done. Paul talks about his purpose in really teaching what Christ has done, who Christ is, so that we would be found in Christ and have faith in Christ. And then we come to chapters three and four, which are very heavy on practical living, praxis. So we've got the doxological purpose, which is the teaching of doctrine, then we've got the praxis, which is our actual implementation of if we are in Christ. And so we come to chapter three, and we look at verse one, and he says, therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, so now he's assuming that he is speaking to believers. And he's assuming also, as you read through the whole passage, that he's speaking to believers who are in one local manifestation of the body of Christ. And this he's speaking to those who are in Colossae. So he's not just speaking to you individually. though the implications are for you individually. And he's not just speaking to the universal body of Christ, just whomever is in Christ. He's actually speaking and giving very particular commands for a very particular group of people who have joined together, who have said, yes, we are the body of Christ. We are a local manifestation of Christ. So I direct this sermon to you, Grace Community Bible Church. It is for us. It is for you individually. It is for the universal body of Christ. But this passage also has great implications for you corporately. So, Paul is speaking to believers. He's speaking to believers who know that they are believers, who agree that they are one body, okay? This isn't just to everybody, so consider this as we continue on. In the rest of chapter 3, up until verse 16, well, including verse 16 and further, let's read the rest of the first two verses. Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, what does he say? Keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. In verse 2, set your minds center your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God." So he keeps saying, you are positionally now in Christ. Now you practice where you are. I think of baseball. It's the World Series right now. Imagine if a catcher just decides to go out and play center field, right in the middle of the game. that would be wrong. It would be hard for the team to actually win a game if a pitcher can't throw to a catcher because he's out in center field. This is what Paul's saying. You are positionally in Christ. You are positionally holy. Verse 12, so those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on before this he says to take off. Do not lie to one another, verse 9, since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices. What are these evil practices? Verse 5 talks about immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to basically idolatry. Just, if we want to just put a huge category to sin, let's just call it idolatry. Because either you are worshiping Christ or you are worshiping yourself. And we submit to Christ or we submit to ourselves. And we obey the passions of the flesh, ourselves. So two giant categories, either we worship Christ or we are idolaters. Okay, so this is where Paul is at. But he has already given the command to seek things above, to set your mind on the things above. And how do we do that? Well, we do that by putting on the new self and by obeying Christ's commands. He goes on to talk about the unity of the body. Verse 14, beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful." So that's the context. The context is we are in Christ, we are one body, we are putting off idolatry, we are putting on worship of God. We are seeking to be holy. And then we come to this command in verse 16, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God." So let's go right into this verse now after a few minutes, 10 minutes. So we have this command, I'm trying to see it in my notes. There we go. The majority of our time today is going to be spent in the first header, which is going to be, we teach and admonish one another. Horizontally, we teach and admonish one another through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So the actual commands in the first phrase, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. What is the word of Christ? That's a good question. The word of Christ is a combination of things. One, the word of Christ is the word about Christ. It is his personhood and his work. We see that in just one page over in chapter 1, verses 15 and following, where Paul says, and people believe this to be a hymn that the early church would sing, For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him." So we see we have Jesus, the exact representation of God. He is God, so that is who he is, his personhood, and his work is that he created all things. Okay, you see how we take two things. First, who Christ is and what he has done. So the word about Christ is both who he is and what he has done. And we can go on further. He is before all things, verse 17, and in him all things hold together. So he is preeminent. He is the greatest of all things. He is worthy to be worshipped because he is God. But then also he is actively holding all things together. It's really interesting, I think it's a full moon, and this morning I saw the full moon out in the west, and it was obviously setting, and I was thinking of taking a picture, because it looked really big, but then you also take a picture, and it just is not the same, you know, right? So that's all, that was all for free, that really doesn't mean anything. But I had the thought, that's amazing! Christ is literally holding this moon where it is. And if he decided not to, then it would, there would be chaos. So Christ, because he is God and he is all-powerful and he's before all things, he is also holding things together. So you see this who Christ is and what he has done. And then one of the most glorious truths, verse 19, for it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, there again he is God, and through him to do one of the most greatest things in the world. through him, to reconcile all things to him, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven." God being God, Jesus being God, has the ability to, through his blood, reconcile all things to himself. So he comes and he dies on the cross. So we see this, the word of Christ is both word about Christ, his person and his work. And then second, it's what Christ has said, his commandments. We think of the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 18 to 20. says, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So we have Christ's commands that we are told and commanded to actually teach others. Then we have John 14, 25 to 27. If we look at John 14, 25 to 27, it says, These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. So we see that Christ's words are what we need to command others to obey. So worship is a couple of things. Corporate worship is singing about, or corporate worship is allowing the word of Christ, the word about Christ, this person's work, and the commands of Christ to dwell among us richly. That is a purpose of corporate singing. It is not merely just to have a moment with God. we are letting the word of Christ dwell among us richly. And I have to say this, I keep saying dwell among us, okay? When you read the NASB, it says, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, okay? That's fine because just a few words before that, in verse 15, it says, you were called in one body. So when we talk about within you, we're thinking dwelling in you, okay? Now, understand this is a corporate you. I think a better way of rendering this, and it's rare that I say this, but I think the NIV has a better rendering, and it says among you. Among you. So it takes the within you out of that individualistic view, and then it brings it to among us. So it is external to the individual, but it is within us as one body of Christ, okay? So among you, let the word of Christ dwell among you. This isn't about Bible memorization. This isn't about Bible, your personal Bible reading. This isn't about just Bible meditation personally. Though those are commands and those are good commands and we must do that. That's not what this is about. This is about externally singing in order to allow the word of Christ to dwell among us richly. And singing allows us to have this come to pass. Allow us to actually obey this command. The point of corporate worship is that it is corporate. There is personal worship that happens, and it should happen often. A lot of times I think our personal time is spent more often considering the things not of Christ. So it happens when we spend too much time, perhaps, watching sports, too much time being inundated by news or social media, And then we think of our personal time, oh, I guess I'll just have my personal time with Christ on Sunday with the corporate gathering, and I'm gonna call that good. It's like, no, there is a personal time and individual internal worship and meditation of Christ that does happen, but the purpose of corporate worship is that it is corporate. This isn't just a time for you and Jesus. This is a time for us and God. We have a corporate responsibility to fill our church body with the knowledge of Christ and his commands. How exactly is this done? Well, you already know. We are teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Again, I think what would better be rendered here would be by means of. So we are teaching and admonishing one another by means of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I think that with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is fine. That's good. It's a good translation, but I think it gets more to the heart. What are you doing with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs on Sunday morning during corporate worship? You are teaching one another. That is the means by which we are teaching one another and admonishing one another. That's the means by which we are allowing the word of Christ to dwell among us. It's the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And you see there's two words. We have teaching and admonishing. This is the beginning of the range of worship. The range or the variety of song. Corporate song. And I'll get to that soon. But teaching is a positive instruction. Teaching is something positive. It's a come sing to the Lord. It's, oh, sing a new song to the Lord for wonders He has done. Do these things. But then there's also negative or warning. You think of Psalm 37 that we've been singing lately. I'm gonna turn there just quickly. Psalm 37. We're also gonna turn to Psalm 110, by the way, if you wanna stick your finger in there. I don't know when, so maybe you don't wanna do that. Psalm 37. fret not thyself at evil men, or envy those who worketh wrong, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the new-cut herb." What is that admonishment? You do evil, you will be cut off. So there's a teaching, a positive teaching, and there's a negative instruction, a warning. The evil man will be cut off. He will fade like the grass. He will wither like the new cut herb. We see a positive. Delight yourself in the Lord. Verse three. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in him and he will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noon day. So positive, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way. So fretting is a bad thing, by the way. That's what we're learning from this psalm. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way. Because the man who carries out wicked schemes, cease from anger. Another admonition. Are you angry? Are you an angry person? Cease from that. Why? Because cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret. It leads only to evil doing. So we see there are two aspects of teaching. Well, this is also for the preaching as in Colossians 1. 28 Paul says, we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. And here we have our responsibility to teach and admonish one another through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So what are the implications here of this command? Corporate worship is necessary. That's number one. Corporate worship is necessary. Corporate worship is not just a sermon. You don't just come here to hear a sermon and then go home. Corporate worship is necessary. You don't neglect the worship, the gathering together of the saints. Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 verses 23 to 24. It says, for let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. Corporate worship is necessary. You must gather together. That is a command. It is part of the one another commands, and singing together is a one another command. This is necessary. There are reasons why people cannot make it on a Sunday morning to gather together. There are reasons being providentially hindered. Yes, we understand that. But if you're able to gather with other people to work, to gather together with other people to have dinner, to go to school, to go to a sporting event, to go to a movie or do anything else where you gather with other people, yet you neglect to gather together with the saints? You need to repent. It's just the truth. That's number one. Corporate worship is necessary. Two, corporate worship is a group effort. Now, we already looked at Colossians chapter one, where it was the minister of the gospel. Paul says in verse, chapter one, verse 25, of this church, I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God, bestowed on me for your benefit, so I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, and then further on he says, we proclaim him admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. We participate in that. It is not just the pastor who comes up here and the only person who is teaching and admonishing here is the pastor. That is false. We participate in that through the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, if we have the right mindset. When I was a young kid and growing up in the church, there was a man that I knew, family friend, who would always come to church in a suit and tie, and he would wait out in the commons area, wait for the singing to be done. He didn't like the singing. So he'd wait for the main event, the preaching to happen. So once the singing was all done, then he would finally come in and find his seat and hear the sermon. That's a wrong view of corporate worship. Third, corporate worship is not about you. It is not a place for your private exercise of faith where you just come in and you're just doing what you are supposed to do privately without any interaction. It is not a time for me and Jesus, a moment together. It is not about personal taste in music. Worshiping together, singing together, is about teaching and admonishing one another with great truths of God and great commands of Christ. And it is also about the vertical nature, which is to actually praise God. Okay? So don't get that, but right now we're focusing on the horizontal. It's not about you. There are so many complaints about worship. Even I have them, to be honest. The music is too loud or it's too soft. The songs are too old or they're too new. The worship band is too professional or it's not professional enough. The music is too performance-driven, or it's not performance-driven enough. Any complaint that you can think of that anybody would have in this church, somebody in this church probably has the exact opposite complaint. And guess what? Guess what? When something goes wrong according to your standard, because worship is about you sometimes, the pastor reads two different emails and they'll be right next to one another and it will heading is the worship was too loud today and very right underneath is the worship was too soft today. I mean, it's amazing. but how about we get out of the mindset of my preference needs to be fulfilled today through the music, because it really is the music that reaches me and allows me to really worship God. And if that doesn't happen, then I didn't actually have that connection with God, and therefore corporate worship didn't actually go well today. Another thing, the people in my church, they're not passionate enough about worship. They don't raise their hands, they don't clap. You know what? Somebody in church today actually raised their hand or they actually clapped. Worship's not about you. It's not about your preference. It's about what is happening. And what is happening? We are teaching and admonishing one another. This comes to the range with or by means of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. I'm not going to define each three of these terms, okay? There are some people who think that actually these three terms exclusively mean the Psalms in the Bible, because these words are used to describe the Psalms, okay? And so they take that and they say, now we should only sing the Psalms. Well, I don't take that position because even Psalm 98 says, oh, sing a new song to the Lord for wonders he has done. So if we are commanded in the Psalms to sing a new song, well, then you can't sing Psalms only, right? It's kind of a self-defeating argument. However, and like I said, I'm not gonna define each one But let's take them at face value, at the way we understand them, okay? Psalms. Let's just take that as the psalms that are actually in our Bible, okay? That's the first category, psalms. Hymns. Let's say that that's something that was written maybe a hundred years ago or more in church history, since the scriptures closing, okay? And then let's think of spiritual songs as songs that were written within our lifetime or our general generation. I think Pastor Don's lifetime, let's say that. My lifetime. Let's think of that. So, what is the range of the average evangelical church these days? I think we do a great job of singing new songs. Songs that were written within my lifetime. I think the average evangelical church does a pretty good job of that. But I bet you anything, if you looked at the average evangelical church in the Twin Cities area, you would find that 90 plus percent of the time they're singing songs that were written within the lifetime or since 2000. Let's just say that. Since the 90s. 90 percent. So if we're going to take this as a balance, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, heavily balanced over on new songs, spiritual songs. Now hymns, I think we do a pretty good job here of hymns. I think we're singing three hymns today. That's awesome, I love it. And I love it because they stood the test of time. Not like some of this, okay, I'm not gonna get on my soapbox. You'll have to ask me in person and maybe I'll tell you. So we have hymns. Maybe the average evangelical church sings a hymn, I would say eight to 20% of the time. Okay? Psalms. How often does a church sing psalms? Just any evangelical church. Think about within the history of even our church. Think of the first 10 years. I was here for the first, almost the first 10 years. five years, six years, I don't remember a single psalm that we sung. Now, I'm not trying to shame us as a church, okay? It's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to wake us up a little bit. If these three categories are three different categories, and we're supposed to have range in these categories, and let's just say we just take the average of that, then it should be 30%, 30%, 30%, well, 33% plus all that, you know, whatever. Let's just say that. 30%. How are we doing? How are we doing as an evangelical church? I think we are very unbalanced, and I don't think we have a lot of range. And I think we're leaving a lot of spiritual growth on the table when we neglect church history and the richness of the hymns that have been written. And if especially we neglect the singing of actual scripture, I'm just going to give you a personal testimony and why I've been trying to introduce Psalms. In January of 2022, my family and I had to very quickly and unexpectedly leave Austria, leave the mission field. And for a good year, We didn't know if we were going back, if we were going on the mission field at all, if we were going into ministry at all. It was just a very difficult year. Let's just leave it at that. Halfway through that time, I started listening to, in particular, one musician who was putting the Psalms to some beautiful renditions. Now, I understand that you could say, well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, if you say that, whatever, fine. My opinion is that he has some beautiful music. And he doesn't just have the Psalms, but that's another story. And I started listening to these Psalms, and in particular, in particular, Psalm 37, has been, for me personally, and I know for a couple of you out there because you have texted me this, Psalm 37 has been particularly important this day. Fret not thyself at evil men. Doesn't it look like evil men are prospering everywhere? Just think of the local government up in St. Paul. These people have evil in their hearts. mutilating children in the womb, mutilating children outside the womb. This should get you, this should get you boiling. They are trying to sterilize us. They're trying to end our generations. There is some evil happening in our state government, and in our United States government. And they seem to be prospering. Oh boy, there's big reason to fret. But what does Psalm 37 say? Fret not thyself at evil men. How many songs do we sing that say that? That say, there is evil out there. There is great evil out there, and those men are evil, and we have big reason to fret, but guess what? Don't fret. Don't fret. Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. Do good. Do good. Cultivate faithfulness. Work in the land. Do good to your neighbor. Do good in our world. Don't ignore the world, but do good. Man, I kinda got off, where was I? Range, range, okay. I'm so grateful for Dr. Pratt. Last week, he came in and he taught on the Psalms for CE Hour. And the range of Psalms, just think of the range of Psalms. And Psalms is the first category given to us, right? Psalms, there are songs of praise, which we do a great job of singing praises to God, honestly, and I love it, because we ought to, because there are so many Psalms about calling us to praise God for who he is and what he's done, and we've done that today, and I absolutely love it. There's also songs of lament, which actually is the largest category of Psalms. We don't seem to sing as many songs of lament. I think there's a really good one by, Andrew, Wing Feather Saga guy. Andrew Peterson. And there's this song, just, do you feel the earth groaning? I don't remember that, all the lyrics, but it's a great song because it is lamenting. And then there's the songs of thanksgiving, songs of trust. There's the royal psalms, which Psalm 110, and we're gonna look at that in just a moment, is the most quoted verse, or most quoted psalm in the New Testament. Psalm 110, okay? Then there's didactic, there's teaching psalms, and there's imprecatory psalms, which is a calling down of God's judgment, harsh judgment, to this earth, which ironically, when we say, your kingdom come, that's also a imprecatory prayer. Psalms of royalty, let's get to that. Psalm 110, and I've got a bookmark in there. We'll hurry up, we'll get done. We'll get done. Psalm 110. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion saying, rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power. In holy array from the womb of dawn, your youth are to you as they do. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, verse four. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Now verse five. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. How many songs do you think in our repertoire that we have Christ shattering his enemies? Range. We are missing out on a major part of our sanctification and means of grace if we don't have range in our corporate worship. Range in purposes, teaching, and admonishing. Range of content from praise, thanksgiving, to lament, and even the royal psalms of Christ, what he will do. Range. We need to not be afraid of the scriptures. We need to know the scriptures and we need to let the word of Christ dwell among us. richly. The word about Christ and his commands. We just read about Christ in Psalm 110. So, we go on to the next phrase. Singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And this is where we come to vertically. In the next 20 seconds, I'll explain all of this. This is a little joke. I have to tell you guys when I'm joking because it's not all that funny sometimes. Vertically, we are praising God with thanksgiving. Vertical, we are praising God with thanksgiving. We are praising God. The verse here says, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. The word here, singing, in Greek, is ado. And it means in praise of. So we are praising something or someone. And that singing is we are singing in praise of God. We are singing in praise to God. This is a praise attitude vertically. It is a heart-stirring worship. A closeness to Christ and the throne of grace. And we do this together. We do this together. I already quoted Hebrews 10, 24. We corporately stir up one another to love and good works. And part of that love and good works is actually praising Christ. Actually praising him. And so as we are horizontally teaching and admonishing one another, we are stirring one another up to that actual vertical praise and worship of our God. We are actually ushering one another into the presence of God. We are ushering each other to the throne of grace. So what does this mean? What are the implications? I think you could probably possibly come up with your own applications to this, but let me give a couple of examples. One, sing out. If you know the song, sing it. You might be like, well, I don't have a very good singing voice. In fact, I can't carry a tune at all. In fact, if I say anything, it's always monotone, and it's always at this level. Hey, that's OK. That's fine. That's totally fine. In fact, when I think of the times that I am most encouraged by people and what they are singing, it isn't necessarily the beauty of a voice. that encourages me. It's the fact that a man or a woman who may or may not know, some of us think we sing great and we don't, but someone who does know that he doesn't have a great singing voice yet sings out loudly regardless. I've had that experience. I worked with a man who knew he wasn't a great singer, but he would sing out. He knew it. And he would admit that. He would never lead worship because it would be too distracting, but he loved to sing out praises to God, and that was a huge encouragement to me. And then also, men, lead the way. Because worshiping God is warfare, and we should be leading the way. Men, your voices should be the loudest. Men, you should be an example to the women and the children here in this church. Sing out. Second, sometimes you don't know the song, right? I mean, there was one song I wasn't quite sure about today, you know, how it went. I started singing it wrong and I'm like, okay, okay, hold on, I need to stop and I need to listen. I need to stop and listen. So if you don't know the song, and I'm the biggest culprit here in this church, I'm bringing in songs and songs that nobody knows, and they're all like, hey, this is really good for you, Bobby, but we're just here listening, which is part of corporate worship. If you don't know the song, listen. Be encouraged, be taught, be admonished by one another, by those who do know the song. Be taught by the words, by the lyrics. Listen up. listen to your neighbors, direct your voice and your attention to one another, because one, as I said it before, you are helping one another be ushered into the presence of God, and two, you are being taught and admonished. So as you are worshiping the true and living God, sing out and listen. We need a different mindset when we walk into corporate worship. We need to view the singing of our corporate gathering both horizontally and vertically. I think we do a good job of singing vertically. I think we do. There's something about the honest praise of God's people that nothing can match that. And I think we do a good job of that. But remember, we are commanded to teach one another. We are participating. We are participators in corporate worship. We are not mere observers. What's happening up here on this area is not for you to just have a nice concert. If that's your mindset, that's not it. It's not just for you to have one close moment with God. If that's what your goal is, you're gonna have to find another way to do that, and you should, and that's privately. When we come corporately, sing to one another. Listen to one another as we all sing glorious praises, glorious truths, glorious commands of our Christ. And thus we will allow the word of Christ to dwell among us with all wisdom richly. as we sing the Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs to one another, singing praises to God with great thanksgiving. Let us pray.