If you will, as you're getting settled, let's turn to Judges chapter 5. Judges chapter 5, the song of Deborah and Barak. as way of just filling you in just for the sake of memory purposes as we roll into the song that's celebrating over what has already happened. You'll remember in chapter four, Deborah, a prophet, a prophetess of Israel, and she calls on Barak to saying to him, has God not called you? to go and to defeat the enemies, Sisera, Jabin, to defeat these enemies and to essentially, like we've already been praying, to put them under the Lord's feet, to put them under, to put them to destruction. They've been under their oppression for a long time because of their iron chariots, so they could not overtake them. Though now we're about through this story we see in remembrance of what happened we see that they actually did because the Lord, which we'll see here in the song, the Lord went to battle for them, to help them, to give them strength and to give them victory. But during that time, she told him, because he was somewhat, if you will, sheepish, didn't want to go unless she went with him. She said, fine, I'll go with you, but know that the glory that could have been yours is now going to a woman. And as they're fighting the battle, Cicera jumps, sorry, I literally just, my mind went to Cicera, and I think I'm remembering, misremembering. Yeah, that's right. I was remembering properly. Thank you. Cicera fled during that time, running to the place where we see that Jael is living in her tent, the tent city, the tent dweller there. She welcomes him in because they knew, her and her husband knew of this man. They were at peace with him. She calls him into her home to hide him. She brings him milk. She gives him a covering to put him over a rug, if you will, to hide him. He says to her, if any man comes here, tell him that no one's here. Like we said, when I preached through that section, I said it's kind of, in a way, it's very funny, because the play on words, he doesn't realize that when they come to get him, there will not be a man there, because she's about to take vengeance of God into her own hands. She goes to him after he falls asleep, she drives a peg through his temple, all the way through to the other temple, down into the ground, just to make sure you know that that killed him. It tells you he died. And the song does the same thing. It really wants to drive at home that God is conquering his enemies. He's putting his enemy under his feet, which points back to the very beginning of scripture, that the Lord is going to crush the serpent's head. And he's showing that in images across his word. through his revelation, through the defeat of these enemies, through his people. And now they've won, the enemy has been conquered, they've been given rest, the Lord has gone to battle for his people, and now they lift up praise to God. As you're in chapter five, I wanna draw your eyes to a couple places before we pray, but I want to just draw your eyes to a couple things as far as my focus this morning is mainly on song itself. Because if you can tell, 31 verses would be a whole lot to exegete through here, so I hope you brought your seat belts. I'm kidding. I'm not going through every verse. I want to draw out a theme of the importance of song and singing. But you see in verse three, Hear, O kings, give ear, O princes, to the Lord I will sing. I will make my melody to the Lord, the God of Israel. Jump down with your eyes to verse 12. Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, break out in song. Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abenoim. I will send you a link. There is a portion of a Jewish singing of this song, and it's beautiful. And I'll send it to you of the first, I think it's the first 13 verses, the first and second stanza. And it's beautiful. I'll send that to you later. But they use the awake, awake and arise as a chorus, as a chorus. So again, it's very important how they focus in on that. And at the end, just to drive home that the Lord has gone to battle for them. So may all your enemies perish, O Lord, but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might. And the land had rest for 40 years. Let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, that even through your word we are taught what it means to lift our voices in song in praise to you. So Lord, in light of that, we praise you. Our song was to you this morning. Now our worship in your word, as we listen and as we think on your word, it's unto you. To you be glory. To Christ be glory, our King, who has conquered his foes, and is conquering his foes, and will conquer his foes. And he's also very gracious. Lord, you are so abundantly kind to us who do not deserve it. So, Lord, instruct us in your word. Give us a better mindset of how we sing unto you, and not for our own glory or our own pleasure, though that pleasure can be driven from it. Lord, it's ultimately that you would be pleased and that you would be magnified. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Just so you know that in the handouts that are in the song sheets and everything, there's some handouts, a structure in there. I gave you the structure. Again, that's for you. That helps you think through those things. I'm not going to necessarily dissect all of that. I just, again, my focus is not for that, but that's a help tool for you. Whenever you come to songs, they have stanzas. They have breakdowns. It's good to study that and think through those things. But first and foremost, I want to draw our minds to singing and song, as this song does itself. There's been much debate over different types of music. Where are we getting the music from? Who's producing it? What does it say? A lot of that, even especially as far as amongst believers, a lot of that debate has been over Hillsong, Bethel music. Some of the reasons behind it are that the teaching underneath these, the ones producing this music, have a mixture of a lot of unorthodoxy. Oftentimes, the focus of the songs are meant to, are far more man-centered, and along with that, the established teachers with these organizations are also heretical. The idea under that being, the question that lies with that thrust of what's going on here is how are you going to produce biblical music when your underlying theology isn't biblical? It's kind of the unspoken question that's driving the thoughts within these debates. It's not that they can't produce a good song every once in a while. The idea is that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Therefore, stop eating from it. What's even underneath that thinking? is that if we're going to sing to God, the music should be produced from a place that is in line with God's will. It should be in line with God's will. Who is God? What has he done? What has he commanded and promised? A lot of modern songs just want to produce an ecstatic feeling, not a focused mind of things above and a heart obedient to God. My mother, when I was very, very young, because I do not have a clear memory of my great-grandmother on my father's side, but my mother used to take care of her, and she had dementia. The woman would cuss like a sailor. She had anger like nobody's business. She's a Wilson. I get it. She was like that. But when she got into those fits, my mother would start singing hymns. And immediately, her countenance would change. She would remember every word. And she would be worshiping right there with my mother in the midst of that dementia. Music has a powerful aspect to it that it's even hard to explain. Other than that, look at the contrast of someone suffering from dementia, can't remember their own name, the name of even their own husband and children, but as soon as you start singing to God, it's like they were fresh on it, spot on. We see this in scripture. You know this story really well, I'm sure, and you should be walking your children through these things with David and Saul. When Saul became king, Saul was being harmed by a spirit from God. He wanted someone to come and play music for him, so they find someone who happens to be David. And out of 1 Samuel 16, verse 23, Now, just so you know, as you go back and you go through Samuel's account of this, we realize there's a point in time where that diminishes and Saul continues to go outright trying to kill David. However, this points to the power that can come with proper song And even proper focused song, just like the analogy, but history of my own family with dementia, that someone snaps right into a right mind, remembering things about God that they probably couldn't quote to you outside of that song because they're losing their mind. Song is powerful. and song was highly important amongst the people of God. Let me give you a little backdrop here to show you just how much they reverenced song and singing. I'll start with giving you a little bit of the Ark of the Covenant, focusing in on the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was always amongst the people and was in the temple. This is where the Lord's presence was and where the blood of the covenant was sprinkled over the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. This was an object of God's presence and His presence was one of mercy. Within it, obviously, held the Ten Commandments and a few other things, Moses' staff, some showbread. But the idea being, take it big picture, to surmise what is this Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is that it's at the heart of the camp of God's people. It was the Ark that held God's commands inside it and where the presence of God dwelt in mercy, at the heart of the camp of his people. You have an ark that held his commands and it showed mercy. That has sweeping implications for your understanding of all of scripture. We'll talk about that in covenant theology, though. However. That is a very important piece of the people identity of the people of Israel. Now I want to focus in on David being anointed king. First Chronicles chapter 11. He's appointed king. He gathers the priests, the Levites, the ark to Himself and the ark to Himself because in Saul's day it wasn't sought after. That's in chapter 13 of 1 Chronicles. This is also within that chapter where Uzzah is struck down because he touched the ark. After defeating the Philistines, David has the ark brought to Jerusalem. David prepares a place for the ark, then establishes who can carry it and who must minister before it. He distinguishes the Levites to minister before the ark in 1 Chronicles 15. Within that chapter, their ministry was singing. First Chronicles chapter 15 verse 16, David also commanded the chief of the Levites to appoint their brothers as the singers who would play loudly on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals to raise sounds of joy. Later on in chapter 16, excuse me, the singing before the ark is labeled, quote, sacred song. We move further into chapter 25 and here is where David organizes the musicians. They weren't just musicians, they were seen as prophets. 1 Chronicles 25 verse 1, and David and the chiefs of the service also set apart for the service the sons of Asaph. You'll remember that name, I'm sure. You read through the Psalms of Heman. I tell you, every time I read that, I stop and laugh. We are such children of the 80s, aren't we? And of Juduthin. What does it say in verse one? It keeps going, it says, who prophesied with lyres, with harps, and with cymbals. Then the sons are listed off, and it is also said further down that of Juduthin, the sons of Juduthin, Gedelia, Zerah, Jeshiah, Shimei, Heshabiah, and Matthiah, six, under the direction of their father, Juduthin, who prophesied with the lyre in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. and they were also trained to do this. In chapter 25, it reads again, verses six and seven, they were all under the direction of their father in the music, in the house of the Lord, with cymbals, harps, and lyres for the service of the house of God. Asaph, Juduthin, and Heman, Heman, I'll say it better like that so I don't mess with our memory here, and Heman, were under the order of the king. The number of them along with their brothers who were trained in singing to the Lord, all who were skillful, was 288. I don't know, it would take a deeper outlining of the history to know if they ever had a moment where all 288 were singing. would be miraculous to hear people trained, focused in on the will of God, singing praises to God. That would be glorious. Well, one day we'll get to have that. If we back up, so again, what I'm drawing in here is that they hold this as a sacred song. It should be in line, and I want to draw this out as I stated at the beginning. It should be in line with the will of God. That's the main idea. It should be in line with the will of God because it's sacred song. If we back up, right after Judges, before David, when Saul was anointed, Samuel tells him in 1 Samuel 10, Here's what he says to Saul, after that, after being anointed, And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. Now, I'm not gonna speculate how someone prophesies with a lyre or a harp, but I do know, given what the content of what is being produced, that they are in line with the will of God. And three specific areas that we'll use as headers with the will of God is what is being sung, is who is, generally speaking, who is God, what has he done, and what has he commanded or promised? Song, being called sacred song, ought to align with God's will and who he is, what has he done, and what has he commanded or promised. It was providential in a sense that we start with Hebrews in our New Testament reading and it ends in Hebrews saying, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. We need this in this area of song. We are so moved in our emotions by music, sound, that will give in to unsound words because it makes me feel a certain way. when as believers we should have our discernment trained to distinguish good from evil so that when we come and sing before the Most High, we're singing things that fall in line with His will, who He is, how He's revealed Himself, what has He done, and what has He commanded or promised. And this is exactly what we get from the prophet Deborah. So we start, the Lord is the focus of the song. Who is God? The Lord is the focus of the song. And you'll see in Judges 5 it opens with, who is the focus? God is the focus. Verse 2, That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the Lord. This mirrors verse nine as well, that same structure in the sense of these men offering themselves willingly, bless the Lord because of it. Verse three, hear, O kings, give ear, O princes, to the Lord I will sing. I will make my melody to the Lord, the God of Israel. Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked before the Lord. Even Sinai before the Lord, the God of Israel. Her opening speaks to her mindset. Her mindset is on God and what he is doing or has done in this particular situation. She praises those who came together to fight against the enemy, but who does she praise ultimately for that unity? The Lord above. They had to be out there fighting, but the Lord went to fight for them, which we'll draw out here just in a moment, but who gets the praise? God does. We need this mindset among us as believers when it comes to our song. Is it our mindset? We should have the same mindset because Paul himself makes that very, very clear in Colossians chapter 3. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. It's so good that we are doing a Sunday School on Christ the Mediator because what does it do? It sets your mind on Christ. not yourself, though you get great benefit with Him being the mediator, but you need your mind rooted and grounded and focused in Christ, or else you're going to veer off like the small degree in a ship that eventually leads you the wrong direction if your mind is not focused on Christ. Our song should be focused on who He is, and He is the one who's going to gain the glory for all of it, as He rightly deserves. Secondly, our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. I just wanted to write that as a header because I love it. What has he done? Well, he's done all that he pleases. And this is exactly what he does in the first stanza, verse four. Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, even though it's the people of God moving, she is focusing on God doing it. The earth trembled and the heavens dropped. Yes, the clouds dropped water. Here's where we begin to see that her recollection of this event is that things changed even in the environment to go to bat for the people of Israel. The heavens dropped water. Compare this with verses 19 through 21. The kings came, they fought. Then fought the kings of Canaan at Taanaq by the waters of Megiddo. They got no spoils of silver. From heaven the stars fought. From their courses they fought against Sisera. The torrent Kishon swept them away. The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon, march on, my soul, with might." She's giving us insight that the Lord brought the environment into play for the sake of His people so they could defeat iron chariots. Now most people like to think and they go and they search and they look for the Kishon River and they realize that's a very small river. How did that play anything into what she's talking about? I've literally heard people start it off by saying, that's a small river. This is just kind of metaphorically speaking. But, however, there is a main road down one of the valleys along the Kishon River. When it rains, the whole valley floods on heavy rains. And they even have waterfalls, smaller waterfalls on the part of the Kishon. So it's very likely, which I agree with what she's saying, is that God went to bat for them. That's why she uses Exodus language to say that he had them in confusion because he was making the heavens drop on them and their chariots are being stuck. Why would Sisera get off a chariot to run to safety? Think about that. Why would he leave a chariot that can run faster than he can? Because the heavens are pouring down rain and God is going to bat for his people, even though they were scared of the iron chariots. And it's a negative. You remember in chapter one that they would not pursue all the land because they had iron chariots. That was a negative. The Lord wanted him to pursue because he'll go to bat for them. Song of Asaph, we read recently Psalm 83, we've sang it before. In his Psalm 83 verses nine and 10, Asaph says, due to them, talking about the enemies of God, due to them as you did to Midian, as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishan, who were destroyed at Endor, who became dung for the ground. The God of the Canaanites, in their mind, was the God of the storm. Now the true God is showing them that he's God over all gods and all people. So he's defeating them by the means of what they used to worship themselves. This is powerful, and it should be focused in on God. Though, obviously, the people have play within that. Deborah sang of what happened. Asaph sang of what happened and asking God to do it again. We get to sing of what Christ did, what he's presently doing, and what he will complete. I go to one of my favorite spots because one of the most quoted sentences of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15, He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. He's reigning because He has shown His power over evil, over death, He will continue to reign because He's actively putting His enemies under His feet. And one day we have the hope that the final enemy will be death. And He will complete it because He's showing us how He's already been completing everything He promised before that. So we should sing praise to Christ, for he's the one who goes to bat for his people. He's the one who takes up his armor and his sword and fights for us. And he defeats the enemy in full. Thirdly, song helps us remember the Lord, what he has commanded or what he has promised. You can see that even in the opening analogy, but that story That these things help with our memory. So what are you feeding yourself with that you will eventually, unbeknownst to you in the future, may have to rely upon? Is it proper theology? Is it proper thinking? Why do I say that for this song? As far as the idea of remembrance. Well, we read Judges 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, et cetera, right? However, the song would have already been before chapter 5 was ever written. Does that make sense? This is a remembrance in itself of judges, is looking back and writing it down so the people of God remember they already had in their possession the song of Deborah because it already happened. So that would have already been the case before, again, what I hold to, that Samuel wrote out judges for the people of God. This is one of the oldest songs that we have in scripture, next to a few others, one being the Song of Moses out of Deuteronomy chapter 32. It would have already been passed down in song to give praise to God, and then the prophet comes after and writes about it, giving praise to God. In Moses' song, in Deuteronomy 32, it's around 10 stanzas, a rather long song. But here's what Moses was told. Moses in chapter 32 verses 44 through 47 in Deuteronomy, Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. and Joshua the son of Nun. And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he said to them, Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, for your very, but your very life. And by this word, you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess." This idea of how they cherished song so much that they wanted to represent God accurately so they can pass the accurate knowledge of God on. That's exactly what we have with Deborah, singing praise to God with a Godward focus, even though it benefits the people, so the future generations may know God did it. God did what he promised. and they can remember his word, who he is, what he's done. Is this still true for us today? Yes, it is. Colossians chapter 3, some people may not have thought of it in light of the idea of song, but it says it plainly in chapter 3 of Colossians verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. How can this Word dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God? How do you want to remember who God is? We are taught who He is. We admonish one another who God is. We do it also through singing. spiritual songs, psalms and hymns, and all of this should be cultivating within us thankful hearts to God, not just moving us emotionally for that time until we get down again, and then we need to be picked back up by melody. We need God to be the focus of our strength and our joy. And lastly, I want to throw in an extra one. This song points to our Savior, Jesus Christ. As the progression happens in scripture, you have Deborah talking about what God has done. You have Asaph coming in, look what God has done. God, would you do it again? Then we're coming to the New Testament and we're seeing, look what God has done. Look what He's done in Christ. He's doing it right now. And we still go alongside with Asaph that, would you still do what you've promised in the future? Will you still do that? Will you still do it now? Will you still give us hope for the future? There's that progression. There's also a progression of revelation of Jesus Christ. And it starts, a unique revelation of Jesus Christ starts with the Song of Deborah. Look at chapter 5, verse 12. One of the reasons I read that is because, again, this has connection through the Old Testament all the way into the New Testament. Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, break out in song. Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abinoam. The phrase, lead away your captives, is no small phrase. This is a phrase that is set In the structure of the song, it's set before the battle even happens. So it's looking as if if he gets up, they've already won. Get up and take away your captives. You're going to be successful. This is a huge history in the ancient world for leading captives away. One, you can just see it on its face. You go to war, there's going to be a victor. What does the victor do? They walk away with captives because they won. Obviously, that's massive, but it gets even more focused when it comes to Israel and the revelation of who God is. Generally, because there's a few ways of looking at this. The victor would have his captives lead his procession back into his kingdom. Some kings would have the captives in the front leading the procession back into this kingdom. The kingdom would come out to greet the king, the victorious king. They would go into the kingdom and at the end of that procession, Some kings would take the captors and put them all to death, a final stamp of saying, I'm victorious. However, there's often times where some kings would put the captives behind them in the procession. And some of those kings, when bringing them into the procession of the new kingdom, would try to woo the captives and bring them under his rule and not put them to death, but bring them under. You're captive now. All that you had is now mine. So he would woo them in such a way to bring them under his rule and authority. And scripture kind of using this phrase, lead away your captives, using this phrase kind of builds on this concept, leading up to Christ. And here's how he does it. Here we have her saying, Barak, arise, lead your captives away, you've won. And we know by the end of that story all died. That's exactly how chapter 4 ends. Not one was left with breath in their lungs, just like Moses and the sea crossing. Not one of Pharaoh's men was alive. All were dead. That's what's happening here. However, David in Psalm 68 takes this language from Deborah and adds to it. He adds a feature to it. Psalm 68, turn there real quick so you can see it with your own eyes. Psalm 68, verse 18. You'll recognize this as soon as you read it. But you need to see a progression here because it gives us more info, if you will. It informs us of more things. There, they lead away the captives because they're done for. They're done, they've won. Here, David, you, verse 18, you ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there. It's essentially saying, the victor now, in this scenario, the way he's using the leading a host of captives, He is placing the captives behind him, and the victor is receiving the spoils of war, even the captives themselves. He's won it all, even the captives, and now they're under submission to His rule. They're His. So there's a progression now. Instead of all the captives being slain and dead, now He's putting the captives behind Him, and He's showing them, I have all this, come under my rule now. I'm receiving all the spoils of which I've won by my victory. That's being the Lord, that is. Now turn to Ephesians chapter 4. There's an added feature to this. And hopefully you're at least following my progression here. I'll state it again in a moment. But turn to Ephesians chapter 4. I'll read that whole section just again to give it the whole portion 7 through 13, starting in verse 7. Ephesians 4, verse 7, In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers. to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Okay? Deborah, take your... Arise, Barack. Lead away your captives." And here we see total destruction of the captives. We move to David, moving the captives behind his train. Now he's saying, I've won all things, you're under my rulership now. He adds a feature with Christ's reign. The train is still behind him, but now he turns around and he gives them gifts. Since he owns the spoil, he now pours the spoil even on the captives, that they would be under his rule. So they're adding this gracious feature of God in Christ to his victory. All building from the Song of Deborah. That term, the same terms, He's bouncing all the way back, looking at the history and movement of Israel, taking over, putting them to complete destruction. Then to David, they're behind my train, I'm under the rulership now, you're coming into my people now. To Christ, not only are you my people now, I'm going to shower you with gifts so that you're able to live and flourish within my kingdom. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that wonderful? A simple phrase built upon by the people of God to show how much greater Christ is. Pointing to Him, how He is the fulfillment of all these things. He's a greater King. He's a greater victor. He's a greater conqueror. And he's worthy to be praised because what does he do? He showers on gifts even to his captives because he's so good and so kind. And I'll throw in with that, just a short and quick, in the last of chapter 5 of Deborah's song, Judges 5, it ends with So may all your enemies perish, O Lord, but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might. And they had rest for 40 years. Again, I repeat what I've repeated before. The reason rest is so important because it's building up to the ultimate king who will give a rest that none can give. And he actually gives a rest similar to what's talked about here in chapter five, verse 31. Some of you will remember Jesus's parable of the wheat and the weeds. As he's building his kingdom, the wheat and the weeds grow together. He says, don't separate them now. Wait until the end. Then at the end, the workers go out and they separate these two from one another. And at the end, at the end, and Jesus explains in his parable, then at the end, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. So yes, Deborah, what you state here, but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might, they will. They absolutely will because Christ has fulfilled that and all who are in Christ will shine like the sun. Because we worship the S-O-N, right? The play on words there, but I think the play on words is meant to make you think to that. It's meant to make you think of the one who holds the sun And just as a very, very simple application over all this you can see is applicational. I pray the Spirit is helping you see that this is very blatantly applicational. That we should be very careful that our singing produces joy in the true God, not just to move us and woo us. and to make us feel something. I want you to feel something. God wants you to feel something. But that should not be the goal. The goal and ultimate praise is that we are singing to our God who has, is, and will always be for his people because he's good and will receive all the glory. But to tie this in kind of with David beginning with the Levites as singers before the ark, I want to encourage you They were setting up Levi's as priests to sing before God. I want to encourage you as first Peter says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So what does that mean? What should our proclamation look like? Well, it should look like a sacrifice. You'll remember Hebrews 12 very well. You need to be trained. by testing to discern what is right, what is wrong, who is God, what is His will. And when we are being trained and matured, what does our song look like? Hebrews 13, verse 15, through Him that's in Christ, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. Praise the Lord. We sing to him and we sing to him alone and we sing accurately of him and of him alone. We are not singing merely to move or emote. We are singing because we are acknowledging God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases and that is glorious and good and right and perfect. So, when you sing, think. Don't just go through the motions. I love when Gary walks up and he gives us an explanation of certain things and even the flow of what his mind was going through and prayerfully thinking about when setting up song. I was praising Lindsay and Ariel for doing the same things. They sit, they pray, they think, what will honor God not what will make us feel good. I want you to feel good, but I can't establish that. Only God can. I want you to worship God and worship Him in purity, and according to knowledge, and according to wisdom, not according to how I feel. Because you can come in here feeling terrible, and your song can still be a sacrifice of praise unto God. You absolutely can. So don't be moved by your emotions. Be moved by God. Be moved by a Savior who loved you and gave Himself for you that He is not going to kill you at the end. He's going to shower you with gifts so you're built up in knowledge. not to your former ignorant ways. You're now conformed to his ways. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that great? Shouldn't that make us think a little bit more of what tunes are going into our ears? And I'm telling you, I'm preaching to myself again. I am preaching to myself. I love music. I'm a drummer. I can sit with any type of music and I would love to just drum with it. But is that always profitable? Is that always good? Is it always benefiting me to honor Christ? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. for anything for us as God's people, when we come together to worship the Most High, our song is going to glorify Him and speak of Him accurately. To His glory and to our good, praise the Lord. Let's go to Him in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You for song in Your Word, and how even the structure of the song itself, it teaches us, it informs us, It even conforms us to your will rather than we taking something we like and conforming it to our will. Lord, we come to your word and we are transformed from the inner man out. Would you transform us? Would you mold us that our lips would sing sacred song, if you will, from your word unto you because you have done it. You have conquered, you are conquering, and you will conquer. There is no God above you. There is no one worthy of worship but Christ. There is no other king but Christ. They are merely kings for a season, and then they're removed. Christ reigns forever. We will shine like the sun in his kingdom, Lord, only because he has succeeded. We benefit because of his victory. Christ is king. No other. We praise your name. We love you because you first loved us. We thank you for your spirit who moves within us to mold us and to shape us to be more like Christ. May we not. Hinder his work by grieving him. Lord, ultimately, we can never stop his hand. But Lord, may we not grieve him. May we not grieve you. May we lift up to you fruit of the lips that acknowledge your name. And we ask all this for Christ's name's sake, amen.