Well, it's fun to learn new songs together and to sing old songs as well. I think that's part of what God has in mind in his word when we're exhorted to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In fact, in eternity, we will sing a new song. And in the scriptures, when a new song is called for, it's when God has been victorious over his enemies. And so certainly there will be a new song to sing in that day when Christ has triumphed over our enemies, over His enemies, enemies of the gospel, part of which we used to exist but now we have been reconciled by Christ and we're His friends. And so we get to sing new songs now, but one day we will sing that great new song of the redeem and of the lamb that we see in Revelation and what a blessing it will be. Well, as we come to our worship in God's word and our family of God series from the Psalms, we've heard about God's family in unity from Psalm 133, God's family and all ages and stages of life. From Psalm 148, God's family mission to all from Psalm 96. And next week, we'll look at God's family trusting him in troubles from Psalm 34. But this morning, God's family gathered for worship. God's family gathered for worship. Now the gathering of God's people is a special thing. It's a unique thing. It is an event, but it's also an activity, isn't it? We don't just come to observe. No, we come to participate. We come to learn. We come to sing. We come to pray. We come to embrace one another. We greet one another. We weep with one another. Just a moment, I saw an embrace and I knew brothers were praying for one another. Even in that moment as we were singing, Brothers have prayed with me in our worship as we've stood and sung together. I've seen you comfort one another with your arms around each other as we gather to worship. That's what we come to do. We come to participate in worship. And as I prayed just a moment ago from the garden, God has called His people to worship. And even now we have what's called a call to worship every Sunday, the Scriptures reminding us that God Himself calls a people to Himself to worship Himself. That's why we herald at the beginning a call to worship, that it's time to gather, it's time to come in, and it's time to praise our King. Mark gave some ministry updates this morning, a.k.a. announcements. And those happen as we gather because the most pressing things need to be communicated when we're all gathered together like we do in these mornings and like we do in our evening meetings like tonight. These things remind us that we're a body, that we're united in Christ, and that we share things in common. So announcements aren't just throw-away things or your bulletin. It's full of things that unite us together, that we're doing together, that we're endeavoring to do together for God's glory. We read Scripture when we gather. We're devoted to it, an exhortation. and teaching. That's what 1 Timothy 4.13 says. Be devoted to the public reading of Scripture and exhortation, Paul says, until I come. That's what young Timothy was to do, to stand and speak the Word. We heard the Word read. We've heard it. In fact, it's been all throughout our service. What a glorious thing. There's some churches in America, even just down the street from us, that you'll barely hear a Bible cracked open even once. let alone infused throughout the service, just amazing. And that's intentional. And isn't that a blessing? What a wonder it is to have the Word in our hands and our hearts, apart from which we would have no saving knowledge of God. Did you hear that? Apart from the Word of God and the gospel preached, we would have no knowledge, saving knowledge, not no knowledge, but no saving knowledge of God. And that's why we stand and we read and we preach the Word. And then we see the grace of God on display as we participate in the ordinances, the things that God's ordained for us to do over and over again. As we baptize new believers, declaring as a sign that they identify and belong to Christ and to His people. once at conversion, but then ongoing in communion in the Lord's table. We regularly gather to remind ourselves that Jesus has paid it all and that Jesus is coming again. And then we give joyfully. We participate by freely giving of what He has entrusted us with, a portion of it. The Bible, and under the New Covenant, we aren't called to a certain amount, but we are called to give freely and generously and joyfully as we seek to continue great commission work as a church, as a local congregation, and to contribute to the needs of the saints. When we gather, those are the things we participate in, and much more, serving with children, safety team that is outside right now, even inside, making sure that we're gathering in safety, ready to help transport someone in a cart if they need help getting to their car, or we have medical folks here ready to help and serve, and there's a thousand other ways. But one of the things that we do every Sunday, and that Christians do often when they gather, and even in our homes, is sing. We sang a song called Sing. We just sang, oh, praise His name. God is glorified through music and singing to Him. My task this morning is to think about God's family and singing from the Psalms. We will look at Psalm 15 and Psalm 24. We're gonna look at a number of other places in the Psalms that speak about singing. God is glorified, brothers and sisters, get this, God is glorified through music and singing to him. He loves it. He loves it. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't love to sing. Maybe you patiently endure singing on Sunday morning until you hear what you really came for. You're dismissed. No, I'm kidding. The sermon. Maybe that's what you came for. You just came for the sermon. And then you get a sermon about singing today, which double bonus for you there. But maybe that's you. Maybe singing is not something you look forward to. Maybe it's awkward. Maybe you think, well, I don't have a good voice to sing, or that's kind of girly. You can tell that to the warriors in 1 Chronicles 20, right, as they marched into battle singing the victory cry and all of the singing that was done in Israel. Singing isn't a girly, feminine thing. It is a godly thing. God loves it. But if that's how you feel. Luther, that great reformer, he loved congregational music and he considered music next to theology in importance. Let me just read to you an exhortation from Martin Luther, okay? This is beautiful, this is very poetic. When man's natural ability is wetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, I know some of you have already checked out, just hold on. When his natural ability is wetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then we do note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is after all his product and his gift. We marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorns this simple, and adorn the simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress, and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God does not deserve to be called a human being. He should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of donkeys and the grunting of hogs." How about that? So, if you don't like music, Martin Luther would have some words for you. Now, we don't want to adopt his attitude. I don't think you're a Claude Hopper, whatever that is, if you don't like singing. But maybe we do want to copy his passion. Maybe we don't want to adopt his attitude, but his zeal, his passion. Because indeed our Lord loves singing, and that's what the Psalms are all about. Every nation saved by grace will sing in eternity. Every local church is commanded to sing, to exhort one another. It's been said that the Psalms explore the highs and the lows of human emotion and demonstrate how to express them before a holy, sovereign, and loving God. And so we're going to look this morning so that we're not clodhoppers indeed. Maybe we can grow in our love and appreciation for singing because God's greatness is worth it. He is worthy of it. He is holy and sovereign and loving. And he inspired songs and put them in the Bible. In fact, the prophets say that He even sings over us in delight over His people. And so we're going to look at three categories from the Psalms in which we as His people can magnify God's greatness, which is what Psalms and songs and spiritual songs are meant to do. Three categories this morning from the Psalms. so that we can magnify God's greatness. And here's my hope, church, is that we would grow a little bit more and a little bit louder and a little bit more lustily, as Luther said, in our singing. Not to impress one another or anyone else, but because we love Christ. Because when our hearts are filled with joy in the gospel, we can't help but spill over into singing. And sometimes singing causes our hearts to experience deeper experiences of joy. And I think the Lord has designed it that way. The Psalms are getting at our heart so that we will sing with our lives. Dr. Street, Graham and I were reminded this week that he was praying for us last year at our care conference that our marriages would sing. Like a song at our marriage conference. My prayer is that our hearts would sing. And so that when we gather together that we would sing. So three categories from the Psalms in which we can magnify God's greatness. First is this, the Word of God. The Word of God. Now we don't worship the Word of God, do we? We don't worship the Bible. But this is where we come to know His greatness and splendor, like we said earlier. Now listen to the psalmists, these songwriters of old who wrote the songs that God gave to them for God's people. God inspired these songs. He inspired and invented singing. Think of that. And when God invented something, when God invents things, it's good. And so singing is good and is good for us. Listen to some of these samples from the Psalms about how the Word of God gives us what we need even in these songs to worship God. Psalm 56 verses 10 and 11, in God whose Word I praise. in Yahweh whose word I praise, in God I trust. The psalmist knows who God is and he knows that he's worthy of praise because of his word. And so could it be that if we lack zeal and joy in singing that we really lack zeal and joy in his word? I think that's probably true. In God whose word I praise, It's an interesting thing for the psalmist to say. It's in His Word that he praises the Lord. And so the Word fuels praise, it fuels worship, and it fuels singing, and singing fuels our devotion and our affection and our praise, and it also should inform us of who God is. That's exactly what the psalms are doing. It's truth sung. And we don't have the tunes of the Psalms as they were written, but we do sing like Psalm 148 that we just sang, an arrangement of Psalm 148 so that we can sing of God. What else about the Word of God helps our delight in His greatness? Listen to Psalm 19, a psalm about God's power and about His Word. It says, the Word is perfect. sure, right, pure, and true. The Psalms show us in His Word that He's perfect and sure and right and pure and true, and so is His Word. In the longest chapter in the whole Bible, Psalm 119, it's 176 verses, is a meditation of how God's Word encourages and governs our lives. And near the end, the writer commits this, he says, Listen to that again. He could have said, speak of your word, but he said, we'll sing of your word. For all your commandments are right. Now you might be saying, well, that was the psalmist. He was writing the song, of course he's gonna sing it. And he's singing about God's commands. Well, maybe he's just talking about God's kind of general commands, the law, the Torah. Well, do we have any instruction or any commands in the scriptures like the psalmist is saying here in verse 172 that we as new covenant believers should sing? Listen to these New Testament exhortations. In fact, turn with me to Ephesians, in your Bibles, Ephesians 5, and then we're going to look at Ephesians and Colossians. Ephesians 5, verses 18 and 19. Paul says this to the church, do not get drunk with wine, Ephesians 5, 18. Do not get drunk with wine. Don't get drunk. That's debauchery. But be filled with the Spirit. And then he says this, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. And then we're to give thanks. Being filled with the Spirit is really synonymous with being filled with the Word. When we are being filled with the Spirit, that means we are devoted to meditating on and appropriating and applying the Word of God because our hearts have been informed by it and we are walking in obedience with His Spirit, obeying the Word. But don't miss what Paul says here. He says, address one another, speak to one another. Communicate to one another in your psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Then flip over to Colossians 3. Colossians 3 verse 16. Paul says similarly. He 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. It's the same kind of structure as in Ephesians 5 there that part of the means by which we are called to admonish one another is by the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness. I'm going to do it in wisdom. And I think that word wisdom should actually be informative for us for the kinds of songs and hymns and spiritual songs that we sing. We wanna sing wise songs, rich with theology and deep in worship. And we're gonna look at what some of those things ought to be that fill our songs in a moment here. But listen, church, we may light our stages, which we do so that we can see, and use computers and a soundboard and a projector, and yes, these are even spotlights, But our purpose in the use of those things isn't to be cool or to keep up with any trends. Church, the God who made everything wants people enthralled in and magnifying Him. And part of how He does that, according to the Psalms, is He gives us songs that sing, preach in a way His promises, that convict us and challenge us to remember His commands. We magnify Him by singing about and being reminded of the warnings of Scripture, even as we just sang. Keep my heart and guard my soul from the evils that I face. Let no vice or sin remain that resists your holy war. You have loved and purchased me. Make me yours forevermore. I had to kind of sing that in my head, but it's cool that I can do that. It's a blessing that I can do that, that in that verse are warnings and promises and commands and things that cause us to be grateful. The God who made everything wants people enthralled and magnifying Him. And the Word magnifies God and so must we. And if the Word magnifies God by song, so should we. Do you see it? And so we magnify God in His Word by doing what the psalms do, by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to help dig deep roots of devotion. And we do that by singing the truths of his word back to him and to one another. If you want to help plant the roots of the gospel and of theology deep down in your heart, sing the songs that preach the truths to your soul from God's word. And I trust it's every single one of the songs that we sing here as a church. There's some ways that we've done that. If you're on Spotify, it's a music streaming platform. If you just look up GCBC song list, there's a playlist there of a lot of the songs that we sing regularly on Sunday mornings. So you can have kind of a digital hymn book with you from our church as you go throughout your day to help Dig deep roots of devotion in your heart to God by singing the truths of His Word throughout the week. And then as we gather to be able to sing those better. In fact, I was even convicted as I'm singing with my kiddos and with you all this morning and realizing that I need to do a better job of teaching my, I want to do a better job of teaching my kids the songs that we sing. Because even if they can't read yet, they can learn it. And I want to help them do that. And so when we sing, we are doing what God asks of us. We are doing what the psalmist instructs us by his example. And I wonder if you can say with this psalmist in this area, listen, I delight in your commandments because I love them, even the one to sing. Do you delight in that command? It's really a good indicator of our heart's love for the Lord. Do we delight to sing to Him? Do we love to sing to God? I'm not asking, are you good at singing? Do you have a nice singing voice? But do you sing? Do you open your lips and try to make a melody to the Lord or even a joyful noise as we're instructed in the Psalms? Do we delight in that command to sing to God with thankfulness and to one another? We magnify God's greatness as he reveals himself in his word and his command to sing if we love the Lord is our delight. And I'm not just saying that because I like to sing. I didn't always like to sing because I cared more about what other people thought about my singing, even when I was never singing up in front of people. I was so consumed by self that I didn't think God delights to hear me sing to Him. He delights to hear His people take His truths and put them on their lips and send them flying in a melody that pleases Him. I was thinking more about myself. But listen, church, when we know Him, because He's revealed Himself to us, we will love Him, His commands, and even the ones to express our joy and our gladness in singing. So church, I wanna encourage you, as you look at the Psalms, as you read deep theology in the Psalms, remember that they are calling you, they are commanding you to sing. Sing the greatness of God, the power of God. But let's think about some of the categories that God's word gives us to sing about his greatness. Next is this, the Psalms fuel our worship and song because they fix our eyes on the worth of God. the word of God, and next the worth of God, or you could say His worthiness. Now, people's opinions matter to us. They do. We're human. Even the person who goes, I don't care what anyone thinks about me. Well, they care about what you think about what they just said. To some extent, we all care about people's opinions of us, public opinion. God has never had that problem. God doesn't need his image improved. He doesn't need nominations for awards. He doesn't pursue endorsements for his book. And unlike politicians, when his approval ratings drop, his staff don't have to plot about how to boost his numbers. God doesn't care about public opinions and approval ratings. He doesn't need any of that, but we need to worship Him. His perfections call us to it. They require it of us, not just corporately when we gather as a church, but globally. God calls the whole world to sing. Indeed, even creation declares His worth. Read Psalm 19 this morning after church. Read it. It even says the heavens declare His glory. Right now you can go out and you can see the planets aligning. Just magnificent. In the evening. Of course. The heavens are declaring His glory. They are saying God exists, God is real, God is great. He's here. Worship Him. And dear churches, God's people, we know the reasons that He deserves the praise. You could put it another way. When we glorify God for His greatness, we are delighting in who He is. We're not just singing because it's fun or it's entertaining, a little more entertaining than listening to a guy stand in front of you and preach for an hour. No, we sing because He's worthy. He's worth it. We sing because of His nature. We sing because of who He is. We worship Him. And a laser focus on the worth of God exists in our singing, and there's a reason for that. It's meant to train our hearts. That's why the Psalms are full of the truths about who God is. About His worthiness. They're laser focused on that. Because it's meant to train our hearts to love Him primarily, not to love ourselves primarily. If you read the Psalms, they're more about Him than about us. When we make life about us and not about Him, that's called what? Idolatry. And we are prone to make life all about us. And we certainly don't want to do that when we come to the Scriptures. If we will come to the Scriptures, and specifically the Psalms, with an eye to see God for who He is and His worthiness of our praise, we will be filled with affection and joy and overflow in worship. I think that's probably one of the main missing ingredients in many people's Bible reading, is they're failing to say, God, show me who you are. I know that's true for me. When I walk away cold from the scriptures, it's not because God is not great, but because I have not asked him to show me his greatness. Show me your power. Show me who you are. Show me your faithfulness in the face of my doubts and my fears. Show me that you're most precious in the face of my anxieties and my worries about bills and about people's thoughts of me and the fear of man or what the future holds. Lord, show me who you are. I want to encourage you to just write that down. Ask God to open your eyes to who He is. Lord, show me your glory like Moses prayed. Show me your glory. Open my eyes, Psalm 119, verse 36, that I may behold wonderful things from your, what? From your law. Even from the law, I want to see wonderful things about you. I know that if you pray that, He loves to answer that prayer. When we delight in the Lord, it points to His worth. When we go to the Scriptures like that and say, God, show me who You are, we know that there's something greater than ourselves. It's Him, His plans, His purposes, His promises. That's what we need to do. When we delight in the Lord, it points to His worth or what really has worth to us. If we do not go to His Word and with the Psalms say, God, show me Your glory, I want to praise You, I want to worship You as You deserve, You are worth it, then it may be showing us what really has worth to us. If we do not love God's Word and Him in His Word, then what do we really love? What do you love more? As you reflect on this last week or this last month or this last year, church, what do you value more? What has more worth to you that is keeping me, that is keeping us, keeping you from being deeply devoted to God and His Word? What is it? Is it your smartphone? Is it your job? I know my job can even tempt me to do that. I can be so distracted with things to do that, God forbid, I forget that my priority is to be a minister of the Word and prayer. How about you? Are you distracted by hobbies? What is it that's keeping you from going to the Word and saying, God, would you show me your worth? Show me that You are precious. Fill my heart because I am tempted to fill it with all sorts of other things. Will You show me how good You are? Lead me in worship of You because of Your worthiness." Listen to what the Psalms say about His worthiness. Just track along with me. You could jot this down. Psalm 145 verse 8. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to what? Anger, and abounding in what? Steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made. He is worthy of our praise and our singing because He's been gracious to us. He's been patient, He's been merciful, He's not given us what we deserve and He has freely given what we could never deserve. And He has made everything. We had a dinosaurs in the gospel night on Friday night here at the church right here. God made dinosaurs, didn't he? He's worthy of praise. He's worthy to sing. Somebody needs to write a song about dinosaurs and how they point to the worthiness of God. I mean, looking at a stegosaurus, a picture of a stegosaurus skeleton. I mean, it's amazing. God is worthy of praise. His mercy is over all that He has made. He's the Maker, shows His worth. How else does...do the Psalms show us His worth? Psalm 117, at the beginning, praise the Lord, all nations extol Him, all peoples for great is His steadfast love toward us and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Listen, God who is uncreated and eternal, He is forever steadfast love and faithfulness, and He extends it to enemies. Listen, if you do not love the Lord through Jesus Christ, you are an enemy of God. And yet, if you will come to Him broken and needy as a sinner, full of sin, full of guilt, full of your shame. and acknowledge that you need a Savior, His steadfast love that has existed from eternity past and will exist into eternity, future will be upon you and He will save you and show you that He is worthy. And the greatest expression of His steadfast love and His mercy is when 2,000 years ago His Son, the eternal, infinite, uncreated, second person of the Trinity, was nailed to a cross, and all of the record of your debt was nailed to that cross, and all the angels sang, worthy, and only a few on the ground in front of the cross said, he is worthy of all praise and honor and worship. But now we, we who have come to God through Jesus Christ, we can say, yes, look how loving he has been, so merciful, so kind, So faithful. I was a rebel. I hated God. I loved myself. I was enslaved to all sorts of sins. Lust, pornography, alcohol, drugs, the approval of men, the worship of myself, the love of money, the love of my own image. I was a slave to all of that. He has been merciful to me. And then his son dies, and he rises again, and he ascends to the Father, and he is seated at the right hand, and he is coming again. He is worthy. And this is what the Psalms sing. This is why we sing, he's worthy. Psalm 21, verse 13, be exalted, O Lord, in your strength. We will sing and praise your power. God is powerful. He made everything with a word and he said it was good. His strength was displayed most magnificently at Calvary as his own creatures nailed him to the wood that he himself created. And he triumphed over sin and death. And so yes, Lord, we will praise your power. He's worthy, isn't He? The Psalms tell us that He is worth it. Psalm 99 verse 3, let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is He. His worth speaks of His character, His perfections. Listen, if we're in Christ and we have been born anew and confessed that Jesus is Lord and Savior and all of that. And we've been chosen in Him to join in His, get this, His triune preoccupation which we have been, then our preoccupation will be to magnify His endless perfections and beauty and worth. That is what God is primarily occupied with. The own praise of His glory. The praise of His own glory. The magnification of His own worth. That's why He created everything. To show that He was powerful and mighty and awesome. That's His triune preoccupation, Father, Son, and Spirit. And if we are in Christ, so is it ours to magnify His glories, His perfections, His beauty and worth. And so just ask yourself, is that your preoccupation? Is that my preoccupation? If you're a Christian, it is. And we say, Lord, make it more and more so. Enthrall me with who you are. Oh, the depths and the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are your judgments, oh Lord. How inscrutable are your ways. But I want to know you better. I want to be so occupied with you in my heart and my mind that my work is an act of worship. My training my children is an act of worship. My confessing my sin to my spouse and my brothers and sisters is an act of worship. My giving, my serving, all of it. is to magnify His mercy, His kindness, His long-suffering, His power. That's what the Psalms are all about. Listen to this pastoral perspective from another brother that I read this week, who has written a lot about music and singing and is a songwriter. He says this, I've met Christians who feel dishonest or hypocritical when they sing words like, I'll always follow you, I'll worship you alone, or I surrender all. Because expressions like these help us align our hearts with God's work in us through the gospel, especially as we're aware of our need for God's Spirit to carry out these commandments. That doesn't mean we sing song after song about our commitment while living in unrepentant sin. But this is what he says, with the cross in view, we can follow the counsel. of Isaac Watts who said this. In other words, it's not hypocritical for us to sing these songs and to ask God, God, would you help me to surrender all? He says, we can never, Isaac Watts, the great 17th century hymn writer said this, we can never be too frequent or too solemn in the general surrender of our souls to God and binding our souls by a vow to the Lord forever. to love him above all things, to fear him, to hope in him, to walk in his ways in a course of holy obedience and to wait for his mercy unto eternal life. We can never do that too frequently. We can never say, Lord, would you renew my spirit within me? Renew to me the joy of my salvation. I'm turning from sin and I'm gonna follow after you. Would you renew my heart and my devotion for you? And church, if that's happening in us, we're gonna sing. We're gonna do what the psalmists call us to do here. We will sing. Morning and evening, everything breathing, all of creation must sing. And especially us who have been forgiven and made new creatures in Christ. That's the worth of God in the Psalms. The Psalms also display the works of God, which we've described some here. Psalm 105 verse 2 says this, sing to Him, sing praises to Him, tell of His wondrous works. Sing to Him, church. Sing praises to Him. When we close the service, sing His praises. My worth is not in what I own, but in the costly wounds of Christ. Sing His praises. Sing the praises of Christ. Tell of His wondrous works. Church, sing to Him. His works are unsearchable. All of His works we will forever and into eternity explore and discover and wonder at. And this flows out of His worth, His nature, and His excellence. Now it may seem obvious for us to praise God for the things that He's done, but we're typically so impressed with what we do than what God has done. Someone complimented me recently. And when someone compliments you, the temptation is to think, yeah, I did do pretty good at that. You know, thanks, I'm glad someone finally noticed. Right? We think, finally, I'm getting the appreciation that I deserve. But a Christian says, oh, God did that. I'm just a vessel. I just want to be used by Him. Thank you for the encouragement. Pray I press on. And whatever the thing is, you can do that in your work. You can say, hey, thank you. You know what? I'm a great engineer. You're such a great engineer. Because God gave me a mind to figure this stuff out. I'm just wired to do it. And that points to God's awesome design in the human brain. You're good at building things. Man, that's such a cool bench that you built. Thank you. God is the ultimate craftsman. But I just get to build some things. And as I do that, I worship him because he made everything. Tell of His works. Tell the world what He's done. Great, Psalm 111, verse 2 says, great are the works of Yahweh, studied by all who delight in them. We're typically so impressed with what we do as compared to what God has done. But Phil mentioned last week that we love when people make much of us, but our job is to make much of God. That's our devotion, that's our preoccupation. Look, is the Lord everything to you? If He's not, then when what comes next week in the Psalms, suffering comes, then it will be no small thing for you to say, oh yeah, no, like Peter. No, I don't know who you're talking about. That Jesus, that God guy, I've never, yeah, I've heard about Him, but I don't follow Him. Listen, is He everything to us? His works are mighty. Everything is about Him. What can we do compared to God? We can't make a dinosaur. I can't do that. On our own, even with Christ, we're like those who do not regard the works of the Lord or the works of His hands. We don't want to be like that. We want to be those who do regard the work of the Lord and His hands. And we do that by looking at what He's done in us through Christ. Turn to Psalm 15 with me. Psalm 15. What is the greatest work that God has done? Psalm 15. The Psalms are filled with these kind of strange and challenging passages sometimes because we read things like Psalm 15. Oh Lord, who can sojourn? Who can dwell in your tent or your tabernacle? In other words, who can come into your presence? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? Who can draw near to God?" Easy, verse 2. Piece of cake. He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks the truth in his heart, who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor. Easy, right? Nor takes up a reproach against his friend in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord. who swears to his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved." And if you're like me, I read a psalm like that and go, he must not be writing to the...he must have the wrong audience here. Who is he writing this to? Who is David writing these things to? To a perfect person? Turn over to Psalm 24. We see some similar things. Psalm 24, verse 3. Again, these are songs, and you'd think you'd get to the end of that song and the congregation would be like, whew. Okay, can we sing a little more upbeat one here? Listen to what he says. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? He who has a clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully. These Psalms. under the Mosaic Covenant were to remind the people of God that they could never live up to these things. Even the great King David, who wrote both of those Psalms, fell awfully, awful hard Even he could not ascend the holy hill. Even he could not stand in his holy place. Even he did not have clean hands and a pure heart who committed adultery and had blood on his hands, who acted foolishly in his lust and in his sin. David, could he ascend the holy hill? Could he dwell on his own merit in the presence of the Lord? And the answer is what? No, it's a resounding no. But there is one, there is one man that the Psalms point to, the great King of Kings, Yahweh Himself, the second person of the Trinity, the one who was before Abraham, the one who is the way and the truth and the life, the one whose food it was to do the Father's will, He has clean hands and a pure heart. does not swear deceitfully. He never lifted up his soul to what is false. He, unlike us, knows and lives perfectly in the knowledge that there is a God, and He is perfect and holy. Jesus alone walked blamelessly, and under the new covenant, we are looking to that one who stood in our place. in the great working of God that the Psalms are pointing to that leave the congregation longing at the end, where is this King? Where is this One who is coming to deliver His people? And He has come. Amen? The greatest work of God is displayed in the sending of His own Son who checks all of the boxes of Psalm 14, or Psalm 15 and 24. He alone always pleased the Lord. And so when we read the Psalms like this, we shouldn't read them in a moralistic way and say, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be upright in heart all the days of my life. I'm going to never, I'll never cave. I'll never bow to sin. We say, no, Lord, I sin, I fall short, but praise you that one has come and in His blood is a new covenant. one where His blood covers our iniquity, by which the Father looks and says, yes, you are mine. You can enter in. You can enter in. Listen, Christ can go into the presence of God, into the holy places of God, unlike us who are filthy with sin. And so, why sing? Well, it's because Christ The ultimate worship leader, when we gather, He enables us to know the Father, to come into His presence. Christ can come into God's holy presence and all who are with Him by faith may enter as well. Listen to what Hebrews 6 verse 19 says. this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever. That's the great work of God in Christ. And so, dear church, as we close, we sing to a God who rejoices to hear his people's praises. We sing because Jesus, the God-man, is the fulfillment of those very Psalms. Jesus is the King who has come. He is the one who is afflicted and abhorred by His own so that we can enter into the presence of God forever. Listen, that's why we sing. We don't sing because it's entertaining. We don't sing because it's something to do to pass the time. We sing because we're worshipers of the triune God. And so, as we sing, as we close, I want to encourage you families, sons, daughters, singles, sing. Sing today. Sing at home. Sing at lunch. Sing holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty at lunch. Sing the doxology when you gather. Tonight we're going to sing some more. Dads, sing with your kids. Sing fun songs. Sing Jesus love me, this I know. Sing it with them. They need to hear you sing. Brothers, big brothers, big sisters, sing with your siblings. Dads, mothers, lead your children simply by reading the Scriptures, praying with them, and singing a song of a Scripture-saturated tune. Lead them in this way. This is simple. It doesn't have to be complex. Read, pray, and sing. You don't have to have a voice like Philip Webb or your favorite opera singer. All you have to do is fix your heart on the Word of God and the worth of God and the works of God in His Word and you will be filled with rejoicing and joy. Maybe you think, I don't have much of a voice. Well, when you were at your kid's basketball game and he scored, How was your voice then? You could sing, right? You could lift your voice. Singing's not just for the ladies, like we said. God cares about singing. We're to be actively participating in worship, and especially as we gather together as God's people to praise Him as a family. So may we grow more and more in the praise of God through our singing, scripture-filled as it is, and may those songs sink deep into our hearts to carry us in life and even into death. for His glory. So let's sing on, church. Let's pray, and I'll invite the musicians to come as we pray. Father, thank You. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your worth. We praise You. We praise You for Your work of salvation, of redemption. Lord, would You help us to sing That's all you're asking us to do, is to lift our voices, to vertically, to worship you, and horizontally, to lift each other's hearts and spirits. As we suffer, as we endure trial and temptation and sin and persecutions, we need to be strengthened by each other's songs of hope and praise and thanks. So would you do that even now, supernaturally by your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.