Praising God In Humility

Good morning, church. My name is Jahson Saunders. I’m the music director here at Broward Church. I have the honor of giving the message for today. I’m on double duty, so my brain is scrambled right now. Our click dropped, so I was in the mic the whole time, so I’m a little out of breath. I apologize. But as you can probably guess, I’ll be sharing about what we just did for the past 12 minutes. And at face value, what we did was we just sang a couple of songs. And some of you may be thinking, Yeah, I mean, of course, we do that every week. It’s what we do. But hopefully by the end of our time together, you’ll see that when we sing, those songs allow us to speak to God with our whole being, mind, will, and emotions. But before we dive in, I’ve developed many great relationships with you guys. I’d say we’re on a first name basis, right? But I noticed last week as I was going through the ministry presentation and I mentioned my title as music director, some of you were like, Ooh. All of a sudden you were impressed or something.

Because the title sounded so fancy to some of you, let me explain some of the things that I do in my day to day. So as a music director, I plan set lists for our Sunday services and for other things that we put on a concert special events. I help with the writing, the production, and manage management of Broward Worship. And I work on click tracks, giving queues, learning software, maintaining subscriptions, gear management, all this other fun stuff that no one cares about. But with the many things that I do, I care about them, yes. With the many things that I do, the one of most importance is this, click. I’m literally just saying it because I don’t have a clicker. My major goal as the music director is to direct our heart and our praise towards our God who is worthy. So that’s the main point that I’m hoping for us to take home and to even participate in today. Today, there’ll be a little bit more singing than usual. Amen. If you love to sing, this is your service. And if you don’t repent… No, I’m just kidding. If you don’t… Thanks. I’m clicking the button.

Yes. All right, cool. And if you don’t, I hope that something from what I shared today that it inspires you to participate with us. Amen? All right. I’m going back. It’s common in our culture and even just as human beings in general to praise things. If you’re a parent, you praise your kids for getting good grades. Great job. Great job, Jimmy. If you’re a Chief’s fan, you praise Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes, any Chief’s fan? No, there’s no Chief’s fans here. That’s crazy. Just kidding because Felix Flemens is a Chief’s fan. But no, this man is lethal. That sidearm situation, 67 % completion rate through over 5,200 yards this past season. The man’s a legend. And did you know that in 2020, he signed the biggest contract in all American sports history. No? $503 million ten year contract with the Chiefs. But speaking of the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, some of you could say that Rihanna is praiseworthy. Any Rihanna fans? Okay, two of you. That’s fine. If you were tuned into her Super Bowl performance and you realized that she has way more hits than what you remembered, and that’s not even including the songs that she’s featured in that go crazy. They’re so good. And this woman has a $1.7 billion net worth, making her the wealthiest female musician ever. Crazy. And she also has those side businesses that help her in that endeavor. But our society elevate people like this because of who they are and what they do. In the same token, we elevate God to the highest degree because of who he is and what he has done in a significantly higher degree. We elevate Jesus to a significantly higher degree because of who he is and what he’s done. So one of the ways that we elevate them is by singing our praise. Here’s the main point for today. Singing is a way to cement what we know intellectually into our hearts. We know that God is faithful. So we sing, Great is your faithfulness to me. If you know it, singing with me. Great is your faithfulness to me.

Or we know, Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. And all I have needed, thy hand has provided. And great is Thy faithfulness. Lord unto thee.

Beautiful. We know that God is good, so we sing, God, is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He’s so good to me. Or you’re a good, good father. It’s who you are. It’s who you are. It’s who you are. And I’m loved by you. It’s who I am. It’s who I am. It’s who I am.

Beautiful. Singing is a way that we cement what we know about God, what we know intellectually into our hearts. Not only do we sing to God because of who he is and what he has done, but also simply because he deserves our worship. Check this out. In Romans 12, verse 1, it says this, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. I’m not going to read verse 2. In response to what God has done for us in Christ, we are to present our bodies to him as what the Scripture says, as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. Acceptable worship is the service of those who truly understand the Gospel and desire to live it out its implications in every single sphere of life. And honestly, that’s just a whole lot of words to say. Our whole lives are intended to reflect praise to him. Some of you may already know this. So for those of you who don’t or maybe need a reminder, what we’ve just broken down is the definition of worship.

But it’s so common for us to use worship to mean praising God through music when those are two different things. We see that worship is a lifestyle. Music is just an aspect of that lifestyle, right? The creative expression of our praise is awesome. We should totally do that, but just not to be mistaken for a whole lifestyle of service to our King. As the music director, I try my best to distinguish this because I want to try to be as clear as possible about the role of the music team. We are musicians and we are also worship leaders. But the fact of the matter is that we are all worship leaders. All those who follow Christ and live out its commands are called worship leaders. And so no, you don’t need skinny jeans and Chelsea boots. Although that might help, I’m just kidding. But let everything that has breath praise the Lord, not just the seven of us on stage. We know that we ought to give God praise with our lives. And so we come together, we sing, we shout, and sometimes even cry our praise to God. And I love to sing. But you know the Scripture about the Spirit interceding in wordless groans?

I love that Scripture. I really like that Scripture because that’s what I feel like music is like a lot of times. It’s just words affirming who God is and praising Jesus. Or just, That doesn’t mean anything contextually to the song. But sometimes that’s just how it is. And I love that the Spirit intercedes in those special moments because the truth is that sometimes I really don’t know what to say to God. How do I approach this Almighty King, this righteous Father, Alpha and Omega? I’m grateful for the creativity of the musicians that write the songs that we sing because I may not know how to say what I feel for God or for Jesus, but I’ll be singing a song and think, man, that’s exactly what I felt, or that’s exactly what I needed to hear.

Have you experienced this before? Whether you’re a Christian or not, I’m sure you’ve experienced it. This song comes on your playlist. Excuse me. Right, we know that song. You have a tear streaming down your face. I will always love you. I’m joking, but it’s true. Like songs have that impact on us. Maybe not that song, but songs in general give us words and emotions for the things we don’t know how to articulate.

They put us in this whole different space, this whole different world of thought and feeling. Just in the same way, the songs that we sing here with the church can give us words to declare, emotions to explore, and pointed words to give God praise. And on top of that, in such a casual culture where we’re more likely to talk to God as our bestie or our peer, these songs can teach us reverence and how we should approach God. I’d like for us to sing a couple of songs together that speak to this truth. The first song that we’re going to sing in this set is called Hallelujah Here Below. I love this song. It opens up with this beautiful verse that goes like, we are an altar of broken stones, but you delight in the offering. You have the heavens to call your home, but you abide in the song that we sing. What a cool concept. That whole song is littered with these things that just make me think, man, I don’t know how to say that in my normal conversation with God, but man, that just helps me to articulate how I feel.

The second song that we’re going to sing is He Shall Reign. The song is filled with this declaration of He shall reign forever and ever. Jesus Christ will reign on the throne for all of eternity. I love this song because it directs us to magnify his kingship. Then we’re going to close out the set with one final song of one of my favorite hymns, Christ, we do all adore thee. The song is so pretty. It’s so complex, but it’s also simple. It’s the craziest thing. God is huge. He’s worthy. Jesus is Lord. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. A wise man once said, that we are just roaches. Some of you remember this. He’ll never let that die. I’m not even going to say his name, but we all know. Roaches before an Almighty King. So as we sing these songs, try to be fully attentive to how these lyrics point us to a deeper understanding of God and really draw us to understand what our place is before him. And so let’s try to actively cement what we know intellectually into our hearts as we praise him through these songs. Amen? Let’s all stand and sing.

Beautiful. Beautiful. I absolutely love these songs. They mean so much to me because they really help me to connect with Christ. Do you guys mind out if I geek out a little bit? All right, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. You said I could. All right. Thank you. I was so in the moment, I forgot that I needed to bring this with me. Yeah, that’s why I have a wife. Sweet. Good deal. There’s many ways to interpret songs. This isn’t the only way, but this is how I see it. We have the lyrics, Christ, we do all adore thee and we do praise thee forever, which is beautifully said. Yet there’s so much tension that’s created in this second chord. Listen to this. You got Christ, we do all… Actually, I don’t want to sing in this key. Sorry.

Christ, we do all adore thee. Did you feel that? Like, Christ, we do all. Just feels like, huh, something’s there. So the lyrics say Christ, we do all adore thee, which makes no sense with this, right? It almost makes these simple lyrics of adoration feel like a question, like Christ, we do all adore thee? So imagine if the chords were like this. Yeah, Christ, we do all adore thee.

Sounds like a campfire song, right? It loses that mystery. It’s a campfire song. But what we learned from the next part is that there’s clear adoration of Christ that’s intertwined with something else. There’s some other emotion that’s there. We’ll learn more about that in a second, but check this out. We got Christ, we do all adore thee. And we do praise thee forever, which is so pretty. The next phrase, lyrically, is the same as the first, but the chords change and makes it feel like a different song, which is wild. There’s some dynamic markings in the sheet music that say, stop, don’t sing it so loud, just sing it soft. Okay? So we’re like, Christ, we do all adore thee and we do praise thee forever. Christ, we do all adore and we do praise thee forever.

So it’s contemplative. It’s filled with adoration. But then there’s this positive lift thing that happens and you’re like, What just happened? What are we doing? It’s all this positivity,

Forever. And then for on the whole and.

It just goes back to this sad feeling. Why does that happen? Here’s what I think. Well, there’s a moment where the lyrics in the songs, chordal qualities shift from adoration to a heavy dose of contemplation and wrestling. The lyrics say, for on the Holy Cross has thou the world from sin redeemed. We’re saying that we adore Christ because of who he is, but then we shift this adoration to this intertwined sorrow for Jesus needing to die on the cross. They capture this through the next section. It sounds like, For on the holy Cross. All sorrow because Jesus died on the cross. Then there’s this magnificent lift, for on the Holy Cross is thou the world.

You’re like, what is happening? What is that? It makes you feel positive and hope. It goes from all this tension, From on the Holy Cross has thou the world, from sin, redeemed.

Goes to this positive lift because of what is guaranteed in the redemption that Christ brings. That’s cool. There’s this incredible narrative, and then it goes right back to the first line. It’s almost like to tie it all together where it’s like, Christ, we do all adore these same chords and lyrics as the first. And then it ends with the sweetest harmony, delicate, sweet harmony that is proclaiming, almost like a sign of submission. Christ, we adore thee. We know this to be true. We adore you. I want the singers to sing this with me. They don’t know this, sorry. But, singers, can you all help me with this? You can stay where you are. Noel, me and you, then Emily and Darren. The last line, the very last one. Okay. Ready? 1, 2, 3, go. Christ, we do all adore thee. Beautiful. Thank you, guys. It’s like this final declarative statement of we adore you. You’re so good. Thank you. Thank you for redeeming us. Thank you so much. Anyway, this is the type of stuff that I love to think about. This is also explaining the process of how I place value on the songs that we introduce to the church.

And not only this, but it’s from whether it’s biblically sound, to its lyrical and chordal, melodic properties, all this extra stuff. And imagine that every song has things like this in it. They’re not that simple. They might sound simple, but they’re much more to it. Every single song that we sing… Oh, alliteration. Hello. But anyway, enough nerding out. I’m going to keep going here. Thanks, love. And I keep leaving my clicker. Shout out to Shane. So the key of learning to cement what we know intellectually into our hearts, that there’s a way of how to do that. We know that God is good, he’s faithful, so we sing these songs. But how do we do that? And the key to that is to sing with a spirit of humility. A spirit of humility. This truth is cosigned in many of our favorite songs that we sing. But I want to read a scripture that helps us to identify what the spirit of humility looks like. Let’s read Matthew 18, verses 1 through 5. The disciples were with Jesus and asked a question. Jesus’ response stuns everyone and teaches us something extremely valuable about humility. Starting in verse 1, it says, At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Who then is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?

He called a little child to Him and placed the child among them. And he said, Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never, never inherit or enter the Kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes on the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes Me. The lowly position of a child, the innocence and purity, the unyielding trust, the naivete. Jesus highlights a child. I mean, Jesus is amazing. He answered this question in a way that no one expects. And not only that, but he opens the opportunity for the disciples and also for us to ponder if we, in fact, are like little children. He says that unless you change and become like little children, you will never, never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Like never? What does that even mean to be like children? But Jesus intended this for the disciples to redirect their hearts and meanwhile, it’s redirecting our hearts towards humility of being childlike. He said, whoever takes the lowly position of this child will be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

And in this passage, not only is Jesus highlighting humility, but he’s also emphasizing the sovereignty of God. When you know that God is sovereign, it’s easier to take a posture of humility. When it’s not just theory, but it’s a deep conviction that God is sovereign, that’s just who he is, it’s so much easier to take this posture. It’s a wholehearted belief. And the truth is no different with music. When you know how great God is, you praise differently. When you know that God is sovereign, you praise differently. When you realize how little you know about God, you praise differently. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Who could fully know him? He’s amazing. When you understand how desperately you need a savior, you praise differently. When it hits you that there’s no other way, no other way to make it through this life except through Jesus, you praise differently. And when humility takes shape through your actions, from your heart, it produces this praise that is honest and real. Another way to describe what I’m setting up here is your posture towards God. And when we praise God through song, there’s many different postures physically that we use to connect with God.

I love this because some people like to stretch out their hands to God. You see people raising their hands or outward facing, their palms inward facing. And they say that this is a posture that’s reminiscent of a child reaching out for their father. I love that. Some find it more appropriate to stand still, shoulders back, up right as a sign of respect or reverence for God. Others bow in adoration. They can’t just help but get on their knees and praise God. And you know that there’s all these different postures that we gravitate towards because we’re all different. We all connect with God differently. Everyone experiences joy differently, experiences pain differently, sorrow, love, etc. And though we all feel things uniquely, here’s the great importance that I want you guys to understand. It’s of great importance to position ourselves in a way that is intentional in giving God praise, to be able to remove our insecurities, our fears, what have you, and just posture ourselves to elevate God and direct our attention to Him. Like I said before, singing is a way to cement what we know intellectually into our hearts. And we must do this in humility and sincerity, being intentional in our posture to exalt the name of our King.

I want to take a moment to sing another song. And for this one, you can remain seated. It may be less familiar to you. And if you don’t know it, with this lesson, I hope that you learn that even when you don’t fully know a song, that you can still actively connect and praise God. If you don’t know it, I’d like to invite you to just actively listen. Listen intently, meditate. Allow these lyrics to wash over your heart and consider what they mean to you personally. Put yourself in the song. Actively listen. Amen. We’re going to sing the song.

I love that. I love this song and that repeated lyric, I can never grow tired of telling him that he’s worthy because I know who Jesus is and all that he’s done for me. We can really exemplify this praise in a spirit of humility. And not only now and today, but every time we approach him as we sing. And when these two points are in harmony, the result is an overflow of gratitude, a feeling of I’ll do anything because I know who you are and I know what you’ve done for me. Every week, we have this time to celebrate Jesus and reflect on his sacrifice, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he’s given us eternity to look forward to. Our gratitude and praise comes to a head as we take the bread and the juice that symbolizes his body that was broken and his blood that was spilled on the cross to save us. Let’s go to God in prayer and give glory to Jesus for Communion.

Heavenly Father, Lord Almighty, thank you so much for Jesus. Where would we be without Jesus? God, I’m so grateful that we get this time every single week to meditate on who Jesus was, who he is to us now, and what we should do for him forevermore.

God, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for him sacrificing on the cross. None of this would be possible. None of the joy that we experience would be possible. God, I’m so grateful for Jesus. I pray that as we take time to reflect on who he is and the sacrifice that was made for our redemption, that we would take this time seriously and that we would be honored that you invite us to do this. Honored that you invited us to partake in such a gruesome part of history. But before our redemption, God. Father, we love you so much. We pray that we will always sing to you and just continue to cement what we know. God, we pray that we’ll never get tired of telling you how worthy you are of lifting up the name of Jesus, of giving him the honor and praise that he deserves. We pray all this in your son’s name, Amen. Amen.