Let me say again, Pastor, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today to preach on missions and music. Both of those are kind of my favorite things, and it was a pleasure to be here. I enjoyed the music today so much, and Pastor Dan's focus on just really driving us to rich texts was obvious today. And I told Pastor, I can tell when a church is used to getting taught the word, in detail because you have an appetite for it. And you're not looking at me like you're with glazed eyes or like, what are you doing? So it was a joy to be here. I am going to apply for remote membership. I don't know if you have that, but I can watch your services online. So let's work this out. I feel very much at home here and hope our relationship will just continue to grow. Well, turn with me to Colossians 3.16, please. As you're doing that, Tonight, I'm wearing a different hat. Instead of Biblical Ministries Worldwide, I'm talking about a different ministry. We have Churchworks Media, and Churchworks Media is where we publish our hymns, and they're available for free download. You can go and copy them, distribute them to friends. We also publish some devotionals, gospel meditations, books, 31-day devotionals that could be a blessing to you. and some books and other resources. And I should just give a word of thanks. All of the songs we sang today, I believe all of them, the tunes were written by my friend, Greg Habegger. And I tried to write a hymn tune once, and it was so bad it will never see the light of day. It sounded like a nursery rhyme or a children's song. It was just really bad. It's a difficult thing to do. And take His Ropes for Mine as an example. I have people laugh. They say, you know, in one song you got the word propitiation and vicarious. Well, that only works if there's a tune that is just, it's, you did a brilliant job writing the tune. And songs that don't get connected with a good tune just kind of languish. You think of a song like, Do You All Sing Before the Throne of God Above? That's a 200-year-old text that really never caught on until Vicki Cook, about 20 years ago, wrote a new tune for it, and then it just soars. It fits the song so well. Greg does such a good job doing that, and he pastored with me at Killian Hill. We've been friends for a long time. I'm grateful for what he does. Tonight I'm giving you kind of a synopsis of my dissertation work, and then also that I was able to take and kind of expand into a book called Theology That Sticks. Hymns are theology that sticks. And what I mean by that is that you remember them. And I'm gonna give you some examples of that. I'm gonna give you just kind of some excerpts of that today as we talk through Colossians chapter three, and this isn't probably a normal sermon, but I hope that book can be helpful to you. It was written not just for pastors or worship leaders or seminarians, but just for Christians, has kind of a fun tone, and I hope you'll find it to be a blessing if you click at that spot, whatever it is, you can obtain that. I want to try to convince you tonight though why hymns are so important and I'm going to start with this illustration. That is a picture of John Wesley. John Wesley was used of God to preach to millions of people in England and the United States right around the time of the American Revolution. And the Lord used his preaching and George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards and others to bring about the first great awakening. So John Wesley was such a powerful preacher. I want you to try to recite for me some of your favorite excerpts from his sermons. You know, give me a paragraph. Ah, give me a sentence. You know, what has he said that really sticks with you and is life-changing? Anyone? No? Well, unless you did a doctoral study on the sermons of John Wesley, you probably don't have anything. All right, let me make it easier for you. I hope you appreciate the teaching that you get from Pastor Morrell. Somebody quote for me some of your favorite paragraphs from Pastor Morrell's teaching. You know, last week, last year, anything? What's that? Let's pray. In conclusion, We don't remember hymns. We don't remember sermons. I'm not denigrating the value of sermons. The preaching of the word is central to the health of Christ's church. We're commanded to preach the word. So I value preaching, but preaching doesn't stick. John Wesley had a younger brother named Chuck, Charles Wesley, and he also was a preacher, not as powerful a preacher or as famous as his brother, but you might be able to recite some of the things that he said. Anyone? Let's try together. ♪ And can it be that I should gain ♪ I gave you that much. ♪ An interest in the Savior's blood ♪ Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death birthed. Alright, we'll stop there. You could probably do the next verse, the next verse, the next verse. No condemnation, now I dread. How'd you do that? That's amazing. How about this one? Let's try this. Rejoice, the Lord is King, your Lord and King adore. Rejoice, give thanks and sing, and triumph evermore. Lift up your hearts. Lift up your voice, rejoice again, I say rejoice. We could go on. His kingdom cannot fail. He rules o'er earth and heaven. How about this? Christ the Lord is risen today. Alleluia. Sons of men and angels say. You're doing great. Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in thy behalf appears. Before the throne, my surety stands. Before the throne, my surety stands. My name is written on his head. That is a great hymn. I mean, there's so much doctrine in that hymn. How about this one? I'm choosing a later verse, not the first verse. He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood availed. Hymns are theology that sticks. In fact, all songs stick. You'll be in a Walmart and you'll hear a song that you haven't heard since the 70s, and it's in there. We could do Jesus, Lover of My Soul, which we don't appreciate enough. Christ, By Highest Heaven Adored, that's Hark the Herald Angels Sing, that, talk about a doctrinal song. You know these, and they shape you. There's a writer named Jeremy Begbie, and I love this statement. He says, in short, we do not simply make music. To some extent, music makes us. Our doctrinal beliefs are not only expressed by the songs we sing, but they are shaped by the songs that we sing. If you're singing truth, you're memorizing truth that will serve you for a lifetime. But if you're singing error, if you're singing mere sentimentality or general theistic truth that could be said of any God, it's not building your soul. There's a writer for BBC, there was a television program, and he was doing an interview. They actually would do hymns on BBC, the British broadcasting company. And they would do hymns, and he said, teaching children hymns, like the ones we just sang. You teach children hymns, and they might not comprehend it now, but it's like you are setting truth time bombs in their brains. And eventually they'll know the words and eventually the meaning will explode. It will go off and they'll get it. I mentioned praying for the Hamilton family. Ron Hamilton now is suffering with dementia. And some of you have dealt with loved ones who have dementia. They can't recognize the faces of their family. They can't remember just things that happened yesterday. And then they hear a hymn. and the clouds part, and they sing with absolute clarity. People don't want jokes on their deathbed. And most of them don't even want sermons. They want songs. They want hymns. Hymns are powerful, more so than we appreciate. Now, Colossians 316, I'm just jumping right into the middle of the text, but I'm gonna make several observations from this tonight, and our time is not adequate, so you should get the book, but here's a teaser what we're talking about. Colossians 3.16, there's kind of a cousin text to this in Ephesians 5.19. They're very similar, but I especially appreciate the focus of this one. Colossians 3.16. Let's go ahead and read this together, and whatever version you have, you can recite the ESV that I have on the screen. Let's say this together. 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." I want to unpack that a little bit. Here you have this amazing book, Colossians. is fighting false teaching by again and again emphasizing the preeminence of Christ, the glory of Christ. He is the creator of all things. He is the purpose of all things. Everything was not only made by him, but for him. and he's exalted as the unique Son of God, the very equivalent of God the Father, now brought into human flesh. You have all of this teaching about Christ, and when you get to a point of emphasizing it, kind of bringing it home to the church, Paul says, to sing? That singing is the right response to deep Christian doctrine? It is. The idea here is that the Word of Christ dwells in us richly. It doesn't just visit us on Sundays as a guest, but it's so at home in our lives. We are to be so saturated with Scripture. that when we speak to each other, when we teach, when we sing, it just comes out. There's so much scripture in your life that it can't help but come out in your conversations and in your songs. So I start with this first idea, kind of a basic idea from Colossians 3.16. Our songs should be biblical. Now, again, that seems obvious to me. It's not obvious to much of the world, but the church's songs should be biblical, they should come from scripture, and the easiest way to do that is to sing the Psalms. I remember I was with Dr. Bauder at a conference on worship and music, and we were talking between sessions, I said, you know, if God could have foreseen the worship wars, he could have saved us so much grief if he had just given us an inspired hymnal. Wouldn't it be great if we had an inspired hymnal and we both kind of chuckled because we actually have an inspired hymnal. There are 150 Psalms. They are songs. And we're commanded in Colossians 3.16 to sing them. So, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The word dwells in you and it comes out in your songs. But then when we sing, he says, we sing psalms. We're commanded to sing the psalms. I don't know if you guys make a habit of singing psalms. Most churches like ours don't. And one reason is because traditional psalters are very awkward. My friend Joe Tierpach says they sound like they were written by Yoda. And what he means is they just invert words in very strange ways. Awkward they are. It's true. But there are new settings of Psalms that are actually very skillfully done. At Churchworks, we have a number of them. You can download for free. Most of them were written by Joe Chierpak. You could set it next to the Bible, read the Psalm, and read his metrical equivalent, and line after line is there. So we're not just singing a phrase from the Bible, we're singing the Bible. That's one way to do it, but as I said, we should actually be singing other songs, not only Psalms, But hymns and spiritual songs, I'm going to give you just some amazing insight. What's the difference between psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? Hymns are not psalms. You guys want to write that down? That is amazing insight. Where else are you going to get that? Hymns are different than psalms. Psalms, I think, are inspired songs that we have in the scriptures. Hymns follow their model, but they're ongoing songs. So hymns and then spiritual songs, you know, hymns might be more anthems directed to God and spiritual songs might be more songs of testimony about God. But they're biblical, they follow the model of the Psalms. So we have biblical warrant for singing the Psalms. You should do that more often. I think if we don't intentionally sing Psalms, we're sinning. That's how strongly I feel about it. We need to sing Psalms and really doctrinal hymns. They should first of all be biblical. Let the Word dwell in you and then sing about it. couple sayings, and I've just a wealth of quotes from people who have thought deeply about this subject. So I'm giving you many of those, and it's not because a sermon is helped by a bunch of quotations, but on this particular study, I think it will be helpful to just consider what others have said. One theologian, John Frame, writes, music and worship is one of God's best tools for getting the word into our hearts. He's actually echoing the teaching of Martin Luther, who said, God has given us the gift of music to imprint his word on our hearts. And we illustrated that. You sang so much doctrinal truth in song, and you remember it. Why do you remember it? Because it rhymes, and because it has rhythm, it has meter, it has music, it's poetry, we sing it together. Hymns allow us to get the Word of God memorized in our hearts. Matt Boswell, a modern hymn writer, if you sing songs like, oh, you're gonna have to help me, Dan. Boswell's songs like Christ Assured, Steady Anchor, he has written, Oh, this is so awkward, but I've got to tell you because it's so good. Come behold the wondrous mystery, he has written. What's the one about our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. So here's a pastor writing songs. He says, our services should not separate singing from the word, but the church should hear the word through singing. That's important. See, we kind of think that you have singing and then you have instruction. Instruction from the preaching. But our songs are teaching us, and a friend of ours, Dave Doran, says we should have the same standard for music that we have for preaching. If your pastor stood in this pulpit and gave you just drivel, shallow messages, you wouldn't tolerate it. If he preached error, you wouldn't tolerate it. You're gonna be like the Bereans. You're gonna go home and compare what he said to scripture to make sure that these things are so. You should do the same with music. You shouldn't think of it as two separate things. We need to raise the bar of expectation. And I would say music might be even more important because your children are going home reciting these words. And if they're not biblical, if they're not accurate and true, then you're actually harming them. So think of music ministry as a ministry of the word. Really. some ways equivalent with preaching. Our songs should be biblical. Now this might sound redundant, but let's say beyond that our songs should be doctrinal. So we don't just sing like, Jesus I love you, I love you, I love you, but we say why. The Psalms often will do that. It says, sing to the Lord a new song. for or because the Lord is great or because the Lord is merciful or it gives you all these reasons, these doctrines about Him. Our song should be doctrinal and specifically we should be singing songs that are visiting various doctrines of scripture. Let me give you some quotations on that. J.I. Packer, now with the Lord, many of you might know him like from Knowing God. He said, it has been truly said that if you want to survey the full substance of the church's faith, you should go to its hymns. Gordon Fee says, show me a church's songs and I'll show you their theology. See, most of us, aren't in a church that actually recites like doctrinal creeds. Do you guys do that? Like you recite the Apostles Creed or you know, London Baptist Confession? Probably not, our church doesn't. Oh, but you do recite creeds. They're hymns. And it's easy to think of them as, oh, that's the hymn to let the children dismiss, or that's the hymn where the choir gets down, that's funny. I told the choir one time, everybody, the musicians will play while the choir gets down. And I didn't mean it to sound as funny as it did. I meant as they descend from the platform. And in our church, nobody got down, but. We should be singing doctrine, and in fact, you might go through the major doctrines. Do you sing songs about the Bible? Do you sing songs about Christ's work, probably? Do you sing songs about Christ's return? Do you sing songs about the Spirit? We'll talk about that. Are you singing through the major doctrines of Scripture? Kevin D. Young says congregational singing, Congregational song is part of the teaching ministry of the church. Church musicians and pastors should ask themselves, if our people learned their theology from our songs, what would they know in 20 years about God, the cross, the resurrection, the offices of Christ? Now we're getting a little bit sketchy. We don't sing much about the offices of Christ. What would they know about the Holy Spirit? Not much. The Trinity? Creation? Justification? Election? Regeneration? The church? The sacraments and all the other fundamental doctrines of the faith? Are we singing theology and doing it on purpose? where we're actually helping our kids. And you teach them Zacchaeus or the Lord's Army, that's fine. I'm not telling you that you have to just tie them down and make them memorize Watts and Wesley. But Zacchaeus isn't gonna do them a lot of good on their deathbed. Arise, my soul, arise, we'll come back to help them. So we teach doctrine on purpose. Let me give you another example of this. Do you know this song by This one is by Matt Merker. He Will Hold Me Fast. Do you sing that? Sing with me quickly. For my life he bled and died. Christ will hold me fast. Justice has been satisfied. He will hold me fast. Raised with him to endless life. He will hold me fast till our faith is turned to side when he comes at last. Let's stop there. Besides the, you know, he will hold me fast, he will hold me fast, we basically sang four lines. But what we sang, for my life he bled and died, that is the substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary. He died in my place. For my life he bled and died. We might say that's the penal atonement. He died paying the penalty for my sin. When we say justice has been satisfied, I love that word satisfied. What doctrine is that? That's the doctrine of propitiation. Justice has been satisfied. Raised with Him to endless life. Talks about the resurrection of Christ. It talks about our union with Christ, that we are raised with Him just as we died with Him. A lot of Romans 6 truth in there. It talks about regeneration, the idea that we have life. So because of his resurrection, we shall live also till our faith is turned to sight. You could say it talks about heaven, it talks about the second coming. I mean, that's a theologically dense stanza of music. Four lines, chock full of doctrine. And you know why that worked? Because he didn't waste any lines saying, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. It's just full of truth. There's not filler words. It's not nonsense. It's doctrine. We should be singing songs like that. Ironically, he took an old text, put it to a new tune, and then added a final verse. I'm not talking, do you hear me? I'm not talking about traditional versus contemporary. I'm not talking about conservative versus modern. I'm saying whether it's an old song or a new song, Watts and Wesley or Getty and Coughlin, I don't care, just sing really good stuff. And don't sing dumb stuff. It makes a difference. Our songs should be Christian. Colossians 3.16 again. You know, it doesn't say, let the word of God dwell in you richly, which would be true. It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That phrase is only used twice in scripture, the word of Christ. The word of Christ is to dwell in you richly. And in a book that's about Christ, it says that our songs should be uniquely Christian. Christian hymns should be genuinely Christ-centric. Edmund S. Lorenz said, some of you know choral music from the Lorenz Company. I think now may it rest in peace. But the Lorenz Company, and I think the one who started that, should be Christ-centric. A Christian hymn should express some definite recognition of God as manifested in Jesus Christ. This is the very heart of the Christian hymn. You say, well, that's obvious. But it's not entirely obvious. Now, I don't mean to offend you. But some of your favorite hymns don't mention Jesus. I love great is thy faithfulness. We should sing that. But a Mormon can sing that and mean every word because it's not uniquely Christian. So sing it, but right afterwards sing a song that's uniquely Christian. Amazing Grace. is an amazing Newton hymn and we love it and we sing it. And then you see it all the time on country music specials or on movies where somebody dies, they're all holding umbrellas, it's raining and there's a funeral and the bagpipes play Amazing Grace. It's kind of an American hymn. And one reason for that is it's not explicitly Christian. It's beautiful, and we should sing it, and there are Christian themes that we understand because we know Newton's intent. So we assume it, but there's nothing that's so overtly Christian that it's offensive to people. All right, just put it this way. In Christ alone is so explicitly Christian that you're not going to see it in most television shows or movies. It's offensive. In fact, if you remember, there's a line in Christ Alone by Townend and the Gettys, and there's a line that says, till on the cross as Jesus died, what's the next line? The wrath of God was satisfied. The PCUSA, Presbyterian, Liberal Presbyterian Church, wanted to use that hymn. But that line was offensive to them. So they asked them, could we rewrite that line? And here's our idea. For on the cross as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified. All of the syllables work, it rhymes. Is it true? It's perfectly true. They could have written it that way. But they didn't write it that way. They wrote that God is a God of just wrath, and it was satisfied on Jesus. So they asked Towne and Getty, can we change the lyrics? And thankfully, good for them, they said no. This is our song, this is what we believe, this is what we wrote, and if the words are offensive and you're not gonna sing it, that's okay. Our songs should be so Christian that non-Christians can't sing them. Bob Coughlin says, if most of our songs could be sung by Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus, it's time to change our repertoire. So go ahead and sing Great is Thy Faithfulness, beautiful hymn. I'm not trying to be a legalist, I'm just saying we should sing overtly Christian hymns. Now, gonna have to just pick up the pace and kind of rush through the rest of these, but Here's an idea. Our songs should be Trinitarian. Colossians 3.16 isn't the end point. Colossians 3.16 in context goes on to talk about the ministry of the Father and the ministry of the Spirit. So look down at your Bibles, Colossians 3. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Of course, the Word of Christ is inspired by the Spirit of God. It dwells 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, basically an allusion to God the Father. Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. The other text in Ephesians, instead of saying, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and sing about it, it says, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and as a result, sing to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. These texts allude to Father, Son, and Spirit. Our songs should be Trinitarian, not all of them, but more of them. Carl Truman's favorite writer of mine, he says, not all hymns are explicitly Trinitarian, but we should take time to make sure that those that are Trinitarian are used regularly and to good effect. So we sang today, holy, holy, holy. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. That's important. Okay, there's other songs that give glory to the Father in a verse, and then to the Son, and then to the Spirit. That's why it gives me hives when people just say, let's sing the first, the second, and the last. The third verse, just worship the Spirit and you skipped it. You know, not on purpose. You're just saving time. Don't do that. You know, cut something else. Do like you did. Some of my hymns are so very long. So you do first verse, second verse, refrain. But don't just willy-nilly cut stuff. We sing in praise to the Trinity. Those with the gift of writing hymns and praise songs should consciously strive to make them Trinitarian, both as exercises in doxology and examples of pedagogy or teaching. Let me give you an example. Master's Seminary came out with a new hymnal called Hymns of Grace. Anybody have that? Really good hymnal, they did a really good job. You look in the index in the back, Hymns on God the Father. Anyone have a guess how many songs explicitly address God the Father? 93. That's pretty good. You know, you could think of like, This is My Father's World, How Deep the Father's Love for Us, et cetera. How many songs do you think they have on God the Son? Anyone put out a, just throw out a guess. 222 songs on God the Son. And that's okay, we should sing distinctly Christian songs. Guess how many songs they have that are explicitly about God the Spirit? Seven. Seven. It's almost like in our hymnody, the Trinity has become a duet, a duality. We should be singing songs that give praise to the Father and the Son and the Spirit, And it's not that Hymns of Grace did a bad job. There's just not that many to choose from. We should be singing songs that are Trinitarian. A Trinitarian scholar says, there's a need to refocus Western hymnody. We need more Trinitarian hymns. There was an outpouring of such hymns following the Trinitarian crisis. He means like the fourth and fifth century where there was a discussion about the Trinity and it was settled at these councils. But by the high Middle Ages, this had slowed to a trickle, eventually to dry up altogether. We don't sing enough about the Trinity. Not everyone should be Trinitarian, but we should make sure we get there on occasion. I think this is the last one I have, and it almost makes me chuckle. Our songs should be unifying. Our songs should be unifying. I read one of the writers I was studying says, you know, nothing unites a church more than music. And I said, huh, you know, you have attended different churches than I have. I would say in my lifetime, maybe nothing has been so divisive as music. I use sermonaudio.com a lot. Appreciate just, you know, I think millions of sermons you can look up by text, author, topic. You look up the theme of worship. And at least half the sermons are calls to war, not calls to worship. You know, we talk about Christian music and it's time to get mad and pound the pulpit and criticize what people are doing. No, actually, when we talk about worship and singing, it should move our hearts to God, not in pride, but in humility. Our songs should be unifying. And here this command to sing is given to the whole church. not just to the choir, not just to those who are special vocalists or instrumentalists, but the whole church is to sing. So the word of Christ is dwelling in us richly, and then we are teaching one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord. The most important music in the church is congregational singing. I'm not opposed to special music. 1 Corinthians is gonna say, you know, some of you, when you're coming to a church meeting and you're bringing a psalm, that's great. So you're bringing a song to minister and you can minister through songs that way that you couldn't congregationally. You know, I really enjoyed this special tonight and it would have been a train wreck to sing that congregationally. You know, artistic music is designed with more complexity. You know, let's sing together the holy city. Everybody, let's sing. Ready? Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Nah, probably doesn't work. There's a lot of songs on Christian radio that even if they have good meaning, they just don't sing well congregationally. That's not a terrible thing, but we need songs that are congregational. They're fairly simple. They have a fairly medium range. It doesn't go too high, too low. They need to be congregational songs. The command to sing is the most common command in the scriptures, and we do it together. And in fact, in Colossians 3, before he says to sing together, he says, stop fighting, get along with each other, let the peace of Christ rule among you in your hearts. You're thinking and serving and loving one another, and then you come together and sing. And you're not gonna love every song. That's okay. There's gonna be some songs you don't love that somebody else in the church just, that is their go-to song. And there's gonna be songs that you love that somebody else in the church doesn't, and you actually can show deference and love and selflessness to each other by singing congregationally. The Getty say the true beauty of such a congregational choir, not just the choir, but the whole church as a choir, is that our voices and our hearts are knit together in praise. It's exhilarating to be part of a body of believers singing truth together. Music forces unity. It forces it. you have to listen to each other and kind of match pitch. And some of you have high voices, some of you have low voices, and they blend together. And at the end of a song, we slow down and everybody is paying attention to one another and following. It's one of the few things that the church does and you have five-year-old singing and 95-year-old singing and we all do it together. It's such a unifying experience. It should be a unifying experience. Music is a gift from God. I love this statement by James Montgomery Boyce, now enjoying the music of heaven. He writes, music is a gift from God that allows us to express our deepest heart responses to God and his truth in meaningful and memorable ways. It is a case of our hearts joining with our minds to say yes, yes, yes to the truths we are embracing. I love that because he's a Presbyterian. Yes, yes, yes is about as much enthusiasm as you're gonna get from that. I go on in the book to talk about how our music from the Psalms, it should be more emotive. It should be more personal. We should be more engaged. There ought to be times that moves you to want to shout, and the Psalms actually tell you to have that kind of exuberant expressiveness in your worship. And there are times in the Psalms it might say to clap your hands or to raise your hands. You say, Pastor, you're trying to get us to raise our hands? I'm trying to get you to think and feel about the truth that you're singing. I preached that from the Psalms, and a lady in our church, very conservative, and she'd been there a long time, and she said, Pastor, when we closed today, when we sang before the throne of God above, I was so moved, I tried to raise my hands, and they just wouldn't go up. I told her, I said, don't pull a muscle. But I'm so glad your heart was moved. I want your heart to be moved. You know, I was taught to preach with energy, vim, vigor. I walk, I pace, I raise my voice, I use gestures. And then when you sing, I was taught one foot in front of the other, hands loosely at your side, diaphragm, and by all means, don't show any emotion. Singing is more emotional than speech. I'm saying what we think should affect us. I'll close with this from Chuck Swindoll. I've appreciated him as a teacher. He's not necessarily considered like a deep theological teacher, which makes me appreciate this even more. I'm not meaning that to be a slight. But Swindoll actually has gotten more conservative in his appreciation for hymns over the years. He writes in The Great Church Awakening, I love the grand old hymns. And I would say I love the grand new hymns. Throughout my Christian life, I have treasured their historic statement of the church's faith, having committed many of them to memory. They have been my dearest companions in dark hours of loneliness and discouragement, my greatest encouragers in times of celebration and adoration. The theology of hymns is far too rich and beneficial to lose. And much of the church just disagrees. Even in conservative churches, when I'm in a conservative church, and every song we sing was written in my lifetime, it's a grief to me. That happened tonight because I wrote them. But I love to sing the songs of Isaac Watts and then a song by the Gettys. Really good theological music. And we're evidencing that Our faith isn't all old, neither is it all new, but we're joining with Christians from all of church history to give praise to God. Music is more important than we realize. Okay, so the soundtrack of your life should be chosen with care. The repertoire of your church should be chosen with care, and you should make good use of hymns to teach sound doctrine. If you'd like more information, you can use the QR code. Maybe, Pastor, you can mail some of that out. I didn't get all of it done, but Churchworks is often providing new hymns. Hey, there's a new hymn. You can download it for free. Sing it. You can get that, and then again, if tonight's been helpful for you, maybe it just kind of introduced you to ideas that will be further explained in the book. Whether or not you get the book, value Christian music. It's more important than we realize. And thank God for a church that really treasures doctrinal, beautiful hymns for God's glory. Amen? Lord, thank you for an enjoyable time together. All day today, enjoyable time singing and talking about songs tonight. I pray for your continued blessing on this ministry. For the sake of missions, for the sake of music, might Christ be exalted as Savior, as Lord, as our treasure. And might all the glory go to you, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.