“Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!” Ps. 47:6
The thing that stands out in this psalm are the words “clap”, “shout”, and “sing.” The opening verse says, “Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” The word “sing” appears four times in verse 6 alone. And why are God’s people to sing? Verse 7 says they are to sing because he is king over all the earth.
Some time ago there was a man in our church who would regularly show up late for the worship service. I am not talking about five or ten minutes late. I would notice him slipping in the door and taking a seat in the back as I began preaching each Sunday. Naturally I thought he had to work late the night before and had a hard time getting up in the morning. But one day I sat him down to share with him my observation and to my surprise he said, “I hate singing!” This went against everything I understood about the modern trend in worship—more singing and less preaching. In this man’s case it wasn’t that the music was too loud or too soft, too fast or too slow, or too old or too new. It was that he didn’t like singing, or so he said. It was then that I remembered riding along in his car a few weeks prior while music played in the background. I even remember him singing along at one point. It wasn’t that he hated singing after all. Rather, he hated singing with God’s people who were gathered for worship. And that is a spiritual problem, a problem of faith and vision.
When the sun rises in the morning the birds begin to sing. In fact, they begin their singing almost an hour before in anticipation of the dawn. Likewise, when the reign of God begins to rise anew in our hearts and minds we will want to sing. Verse 5 says, “God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” Essential to everything in worship is the ability to see Christ, the king of all the earth and light of the world, rising to his throne.
