Why We Must Sing God’s Praise Together
Singing together is a lost art in modern Western culture. While practically everyone consumes music and has personal favorite artists and playlists to jam out with at home or in the car, it is unusual for people to sing with others today. Outside of church, we don’t have many opportunities to sing together, which is why participating in congregational singing on Sunday morning is so vital.
Whether or not you feel that you are good at singing, God has commanded us to sing and has uniquely gifted each of us with a voice to sing His praise. The last verse in the final psalm declares emphatically, “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:6), taking away any excuses we have not to sing. Singing together to the Lord is not optional, but a commandment.
But what should we sing to the Lord? Scripture reveals that through song we should declare God’s mighty acts of salvation and praise Him. Exodus 15 records the first congregational worship song where Moses and Miriam led more than 2 million Hebrews in a loud song about God’s deliverance at the Red Sea. This song begins, “The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation” (15:2). Revelation 15 states that one day in heaven we will sing this song of Moses and the song of the Lamb in God’s presence with the redeemed people from all nations and all times at God’s throne.
The purpose of our singing is to give God the glory that only He deserves and to build up one another in the faith. The Apostle Paul urges the Colossian believers and all of us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (3:16). Our songs should be saturated with Scripture so that His Word fills our hearts and minds. We must sing to God and to one another to instruct and challenge ourselves to live holy, God-honoring lives through diverse musical offerings.
Singing is essential to every Christian’s walk with Jesus. Regardless of natural talent or interest in singing, God’s Word is clear that Jesus deserves and desires your worship through song and wants to hear your voice that He gave to you. Perhaps singing God’s praise together is so important to God because God Himself loves to sing. In a beautiful prophecy from Zephaniah, we are told, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (3:17).
Singing to God together also reminds us that God is with us here and now. God makes His manifest presence known to His people when they sing His praise (Psalm 22:3), and the writer of Hebrews affirms that God will never leave us or forsake and that through Jesus we must “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” (13:5,15). Singing psalms such as “10,000 Reasons” and “Thou, O Lord,” hymns such as “How Great Thou Art” and “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and spiritual songs such as “Graves Into Gardens” and “Lord, I Need You,” can bring glory to God and can edify the church by declaring who God is and what He has done and by praising Him.
If you love to sing in church, keep singing out because God loves to hear your voice, and we do too. If you don’t love to sing in church, take to heart that God gave you lungs to breathe and lips to utter His praise. He is worthy of every song we could ever sing and so much more! God wants to hear you shout out His name with a joyful heart, no matter how out of tune you may sound. God wants to hear you, and your church family needs to hear you. When we sing, we are obeying Jesus, who is both the Person we worship and the One who leads our worship, whose Spirit is among us when we sing God’s praises together (Hebrews 2:12). One day, we will all stand together before God’s throne and sing His praise for all eternity, so we might as well practice for heaven this Sunday.