Who Are You Singing For?

“Serve the LORD with gladness;come before His presence with singing.” (Proverbs 16:24)

A big reason why singing can so easily “fall flat” is we fail to recognize who we are singing to. Ultimately, it is God who is the audience. Too often, we come to worship as man-pleasers worried about what someone may think of our flat singing voice or afraid to clap because someone might accuse us of being Pentecostal.

God is our first spectator. But, in addition to that, God is not the only audience.

Here’s the thing: when you sing in a congregation, you’re not just singing for yourself; you’re singing for every other member of the congregation, for their edification and building up in Christ.

Paul says “How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification” (I Corinthians 14:26). The Corinthian church was coming to worship as men-pleasers and ego-pleasers and thus created a chaotic worship service where everyone was in it for themselves. Paul rebuked their muddled worship.

Paul tells us that when we come together, everything we do – including our singing – is for each other. Singing songs is not just an opportunity for each of us, as individuals, to worship God in our own way. It’s an opportunity for the church, as a whole, to worship God together and for the benefit of others.

Jonathan Edwards has said, “The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other, is by music. When I would form in my mind an idea of a society in the highest degree happy, I think of them as expressing their love, their joy, and the inward concord and harmony and spiritual beauty of their souls by sweetly singing to each other.”

This should help us sing the songs that don’t resonate with us. Don’t check out on songs that aren’t your favorites; sing them!  Sing them loud and heartily, not because you may particularly like them, but because you may be helping to edify another brother or sister whose heart is engaged deeply with those songs. Worship is a corporate experience where we edify one another by coming before God to sing.