Introduction

In the first half of Ephesians Paul has been telling us about all the great plans, purpose, and work of God.

God wants to show off. He wants to be able to brag. And he wants to do it with us.

Ephesians 3:10 ESV

¹⁰ so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

We are a demonstration of how smart God is – that even after we rejected and rebelled against him and began worshiping the creation instead of the creator, he was able to get us back. Mankind was broken into all these different nations, made of broken people, bowing down to idols.

But through Jesus, he began putting it all back together. And he did it, of all the various ways he could have, by dying on a cross – like winning a fight with both hands tied behind his back.

And so in Ephesians 4-6, the second half of the letter, we’re told how we maintain that unity and reflect the wisdom of God.

By putting off the old ways
Putting on love and the character of Christ
Refusing to tolerate divisive sins

Now, in Ephesians 5:15-18, we’re given more instruction on how to be a demonstration of God’s wisdom.

Ephesians 5:15–18 ESV

¹⁵ Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

So we have three pairs of behavior. Don’t do that anymore – do this instead.

Don’t be unwise, but wise
Don’t be foolish, but understand God’s will
Don’t be full of wine which clouds and dulls the mind, but be filled with the Spirit

And there’s a sense of urgency behind this as well. The days are evil! So make the best use of your time.

The days are evil because they’re being ruled by the prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2:2. But they’re also evil in the sense that they are limited. In Jewish tradition the last days were characterized by evil. Paul agrees with this in 2 Timothy 3:1

2 Timothy 3:1–4 ESV

¹ But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

So make the best use of your time. Be wise, understand the will of God, be full of the Holy Spirit, because the next step in God’s plan is his last one – the finishing up of all things and judgment.

So Start Singing

So in the meantime, start singing.

We are to be…

Ephesians 5:19–20 ESV

¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, ²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

That might sound a bit odd to us. If we want to be wise, understanding, and full of the Spirit we would probably think that we need to hit the books. Grab that bible and get to reading! How does singing help us with our wise walk in these last days?

Why Sing Praise?

Have you ever wondered at all why God wants us to sing? He’s not telling us here to say good, true, and uplifting things. He wants us to sing them.

It’s easy to take singing for granted if we’ve grown up in a religious context. It’s just something we’ve always done and don’t really think about it much. But you might get a new person coming in: what do you say when they ask you about why we sing?

Singing is often framed as something that we give to God as part of our worship, and that is indeed part of it here in Ephesians 5:19.

Paul’s first term for the songs we sing are The Psalms, Israel’s original hymn book. And you will find plenty of songs that simply announce praise to God:

Psalm 150:1–2 ESV

¹ Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens!

² Praise him for his mighty deeds;

praise him according to his excellent greatness!

This Psalm has no other purpose than to glorify God and tell him how awesome he is.

And this has convinced a lot of people that God is some sort of megalomaniac. Marcel Proust wrote:

Worship is an aspect of religion that I always found difficult to understand. Suppose we postulate an omnipotent being who, for reasons inscrutable to us, decided to create something other than himself. Why should he expect us to worship him? We didn’t ask to be created. Our lives are often troubled. We know that human tyrants, puffed up with pride, crave adulation and homage. But a morally perfect God would surely have no character defects. So why are all these people on their knees every Sunday?

The idea of singing praise to God is just weird and self-serving. Get over yourself God!

But isn’t it normal to praise the things we love? Is it wrong to admire the art we find beautiful? To praise the music we enjoy? We praise everything else we love, so why not God?

Praise is the completion of our enjoyment. We can’t go to a great restaurant without telling people about it. We can’t see our kids do something amazing without bragging about it.

If we really love something we can’t help ourselves from praising it.

What would happen if you stopped praising the things you loved? Stop praising and stop being thankful and that relationship will die. Not just because the other person will feel unappreciated, but because you yourself will stop seeing them as praiseworthy.

We need to sing praises of God in the last days to keep our priorities straight. By singing praise to him we’re stopping ourselves from putting in idol in his rightful place and declaring that he is rightfully the highest priority in our lives.

For Each Other

Now, back to Ephesians 5:19, praising God is not the only thing we’re to do with our singing.

Ephesians 5:19 ESV

¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,

We’re supposed to be singing for the sake of each other. Singing is going to be what helps us walk wisely. God did not instruct us to sing for his benefit – but for our own. We need worship more than God does.

The Benefits of Singing

It Helps Us Walk Wisely

We need the songs of God to help us walk the straight and narrow.

For example, look at the problem Israel faces in Deuteronomy 31:16-18

Deuteronomy 31:16–18 ESV

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ¹⁷ Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ ¹⁸ And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.

Israel is about to be without Moses. They’re going to fall to worldly influences, and judgment will follow. So what’s the solution? What tool does God give Israel to help mitigate this disaster?

Deuteronomy 31:19 ESV

¹⁹ “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy 31:21 ESV

²¹ And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.”

How many songs and hymns live unforgotten in our mouths? Do you remember a few weeks ago, Hayden was leading Holy, Holy, Holy, and the slides got kinda messed up? Did you notice that we were still able to sing it?

How many songs stand as witnesses against us?

When you look at the song Moses was taught, it’s written to accomplish a few things:

It teaches God’s love for Israel
Condemns Israel for the false god’s it has bowed down to
And when they’re walking along, wondering why life is so hard – the song stuck in their head is the answer.

How many songs do the same for us?

How easy is it to sin with Lamb of God playing in your head?

All of this is in line with what Paul says about singing in Colossians 3:16

Colossians 3:16 ESV

¹⁶ 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.

Through singing we give ourselves an ever present reminder of God’s word, allowing it to stick and pop up in the times we need it most.

Therapeutic

But songs do a lot more than trouble us when we stray from God. They give us comfort.

Let’s remember that the songs we sing are poetic. They’re not just flat statements, but as one poet puts it: “The best words in the best order.”

Listen to some of these statements about song and poetry Dr. Richard Sima, a neuroscientist, made:

The 2021 study of hospitalized children found that providing opportunities for them to read and write poetry reduce their fear, sadness, anger, worry and fatigue.

Other studies found that poetry therapy with a certified therapist helped cancer patients improve emotional resilience, alleviate anxiety levels, and improve their quality of life.

A systematic review published in 2019 found that poetry can help healthcare workers combat burnout and increase empathy for patients, giving the front-lines another arts based tool to turn to during the pandemic and beyond.

Do you think we need something like that in these last days? When we see sin running rampant, God blasphemed, and we endure all of our personal struggles throughout the week?

It’s what the composer of Psalm 77 needed.

Psalm 77:4–6 ESV

⁴ You hold my eyelids open;

I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

⁵ I consider the days of old,

the years long ago.

⁶ I said, “Let me remember my song in the night;

let me meditate in my heart.”

Then my spirit made a diligent search:

It’s 2009, I’m 17 years old an the movie Paranormal Activity is being touted as the scariest movie ever made. I hate scary movies. But all the guys want to go see it at midnight and I can’t back out. I’m back home around 2 AM with my eyelids open, still as a mouse. You know how I got to bed? Jesus Loves Me This I Know, and the demons are afraid of Jesus.

Again, keeping in mind that Paul’s hymn book would have been the psalms, have you ever considered that a full third of them, more than any other style, are laments? Sad songs for sad people?

We can lose sight of the wide variety of emotions that God not only expects us to have but even invites into his presence, even into our worship. Not just the happy songs, or songs of praise but songs that cover the whole range of emotions we feel – depression, anger, doubt. Those are feelings that we have a hard time expressing to each other, and I imagine to God as well. But he’s given us a full arsenal of songs for every possible emotion we could feel.

By doing so, God is saying “I get it.” Your mad/sad or anything else. But don’t hide it – remember your song in the night that expresses all your frustrations so that you and God can work through together.

Engages Head & Heart

The last benefit of singing that we’ll discuss this morning is that we just like it.

We’re all familiar with this concept. the left side of our brain is said to be logical, focused, organized. Then we have the right side of the brain which is all about our creativity, emotions and expressions.

It strikes me that most of our relationship with God is dominated by this left side. Sit down, be quiet, learn. Here’s an idea I’m arguing for with evidence to back my claim. So much of theology has been systematic theology, with propositions, categorizations, and doctrinal disputes.

All of that stuff is important, we need that left side of the brain, but would we want all of our life dominated by that? Without the artistic and creative side being given anything?

God is not a being of pure logic. We, being made in his image, are head and heart – and God engages with both of those.

Psalm 27:4 ESV

⁴ One thing have I asked of the Lord,

that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

and to inquire in his temple.

Have you ever thought of beauty being an aspect of God?

The left side of the brain likes to break that into logic, and we could read a commentary that says:

The verb “have asked” (a present perfect) would include the past and the present; the next verb (an imperfect) looks to the future, “I shall seek.” So his quest has been and will continue to be to dwell in the sanctuary. This expression is clarified by a series of infinitive clauses…

Now that I’ve read that I really want to gaze upon the beauty of God in his temple…

Or we can do something like this: I’m going to invite Tommy up here to lead the chorus of one of our favorite songs

God wants us to gaze upon his beauty. Who showed it to you better, the scholar or the song leader?