A Word on Worship: What Scripture Says About Singing

Aaron Lee | July 28, 2024 | Youth Sunday School | Various Passages

The following is an edited version of the audio transcript:

I think it was sometime between junior high and high school, or somewhere along that line, that these verses really stood out to me. They changed my life by helping me think less about music and more about everything else. Let me try to explain what everything else is.

Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go through these verses quickly because we don’t have too much time. As we go through them, I’m going to try to paint a picture for you of what worship is.

I’ve put the verses on the board. They’re from the Bible, so when you do this type of Bible study, you always want to follow these steps: observation, interpretation, and application.

When you observe, you think about the different words the Bible uses and the context. When you interpret, you identify the big idea from the verses. Then you try to apply it. I’m going to go through these steps pretty quickly, but pay attention to how I do it and try to follow along.

1. Worship Is Offering Your Life to God

Here’s the first verse: Romans 12:1. This verse is about worship. When you’re thinking about worship, you can search for the word worship in the Bible, and this is one of the verses that will come up. It says:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Notice that there’s nothing here about singing or music. That was mind-blowing to me at the time because that’s all I thought worship was. I really thought it was just singing and music. But no, it’s saying that worship is actually a spiritual act.

It’s not just a physical thing I do, like singing. Singing is a physical act, but worship is something more. It’s spiritual. It’s something deeper inside of you.

And what does it say? It says to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. That’s what the sentence is saying: spiritual worship means presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Now, that makes absolutely no sense at first because sacrifices in the Old Testament were dead animals, right? You sacrificed an animal to God. You killed a lamb and said, “God, this is my offering to you, a sacrifice to you.”

But when Paul talks about it in Romans, he’s saying, “No, your body is a living sacrifice.” So, somewhere in Paul’s mind, he’s saying that, in order to worship God, you need to die to yourself and offer your body to God.

Now, we know that doesn’t mean suicide. Suicide is totally wrong. I’m not even joking about that. It’s wrong. God does not endorse that at all.

So, what does it mean to be a living sacrifice? Well, you’ve got to think about what Jesus says: we’re to die to ourselves. We’re not to live for ourselves; we’re supposed to live for Jesus.

I think that’s what it’s talking about. I think being a living sacrifice means dying to yourself in the sense that, when you become a Christian, Jesus becomes your life. He becomes the one you live for.

You don’t live for yourself anymore. Instead, you start living for God and what He wants. I think that’s what it means to be a living sacrifice: you dedicate your life to God. That’s not a physical thing; it’s a spiritual thing that happens in your heart.

That’s a very important verse when we’re talking about worship. Let’s go to the next one.

2. Worship Is a Matter of the Heart, Not a Place

Here’s another verse. This is Jesus speaking in a famous story. He was talking to a woman at the well. She had had several husbands, and Jesus was trying to tell her, “Hey, if you come to Me, I will fulfill your needs, your desires, and your longings.”

Here, Jesus tells the woman:

“The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

You see, when Jesus was talking to the woman, she asked Him a question. She said, “Hey, Jesus, these people worship at this temple over here, while other people worship at this temple or on this mountain over there. Which one is correct?”

Jesus blows her mind by saying, “Hey, worship doesn’t take place on any of those mountains. God is seeking people to worship Him in spirit and truth.”

So Jesus no longer makes worship about a particular place. Instead, He brings it back to the spirit, meaning something inside you as a person—your spiritual nature, your body, yourself. That’s where worship takes place.

It’s not an external thing. It’s not about an external place you go to. Worship happens inside of you.

Another thing that blew my mind as I was learning about this was that worship isn’t just singing anymore. It’s not even just going to church to sing to God. Worship can happen throughout my life when I worship Him spiritually, from my heart.

With the truth of the Bible, I can worship at home, at school, on vacation, during summer break, or at volleyball practice. Worship can take place anywhere. It doesn’t just happen at church; it happens inside of me, in spirit and truth. That’s what it means.

3. Worship Includes Scripture, Teaching, and Encouragement

Let’s look at another verse. This one is clearly talking about singing songs. You study the verse and think, “Okay, yeah, this is worship. This is worship.”

“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.”

That is worship, right? But there’s more to it than just singing. Look at all the other things it talks about. It talks about letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly. So, it’s talking about bringing the Bible into your heart.

It’s not just talking about singing; it’s talking about putting the words inside you. It also says to teach and admonish one another. That means what we’re doing here—teaching and encouraging each other—is also worship.

Wisdom, songs, singing—yes. But look at this part, too: “with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Again, there’s that concept of worship coming from your heart and having a thankful heart toward God.

So, do you see what’s happening here? Worship isn’t just singing anymore. It’s expanding to include the things we do with the Bible and the word of Christ. It’s what we do in Sunday school when we teach, what we do in our small groups, and what we do when we talk with other Christians about Jesus to encourage and admonish each other.

And here, it’s also about having thankfulness in our hearts to God. Again, worship comes from inside us. Worship is more than just singing.

4. Worship Means Being Filled With the Holy Spirit

Here’s another verse:

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

This reinforces what we just read, right? You have to be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to worship God. Singing is part of it, but it’s more than singing. It’s making melody to the Lord with your heart, not just with your lips.

It’s incredible, right? It’s incredible that it comes from your heart, from deep inside you. So, it’s not just an external act; you actually have to believe it. You have to feel it inside of you.

And again, it talks about giving thanks. That means having a thankful disposition always and for everything. At all times, you can worship God, and you can worship Him in every situation.

You’re saying, “God, I’m not just going to worship You when I’m at church. I’m going to do it all the time, with a thankful heart. And I’m not just going to thank You for the good things; I’m also going to thank You for the bad things that have happened in my life.”

This is especially important: “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It has to be done in the name of Jesus, right? You can only worship God correctly through Jesus.

That’s why Christians believe that people of other religions cannot worship God in the same way because they don’t know Jesus. Christians are very clear about this. The Bible is very clear that Jesus is the only way to be saved. He’s the only one who can forgive us for our sins, and Jesus is the only way through which we can offer acceptable worship to God. He’s the only way.

This whole thing has really expanded my mind. I’ve come to see that worship is more than just singing.

5. Worship Is a Continual Sacrifice of Praise

One more verse. I think this is the last one I have for you:

“Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.”

There’s a lot in this one verse. First, “through Him” reinforces the fact that it needs to be through Jesus.

Then it says, “Let us continually offer up” a sacrifice of praise. Again, it’s not just when I come to church. It’s always, all the time—giving thanks and praising God.

It says to offer up a sacrifice, not a dead animal, but a sacrifice of praise.

That means being thankful to God in our hearts and offering our lives as worship to Him.

It says, “the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” Acknowledging God doesn’t just mean saying the name of Jesus. That’s not what it means.

It means confessing Him and saying, “Jesus is real, and I want to live my life for Him.” That’s what it means to acknowledge Jesus in your life. You’re constantly living for Him, always seeking ways to please Him, worship Him, and bring Him into your life, keeping Him at the forefront of your mind.

That’s what worship is when you boil it down. I tried to summarize it in a few simple sentences, and here’s what I came up with.

6. Worship Is a Lifestyle

From that first verse, I think worship is a lifestyle. It’s a way we live our lives. It’s not just something we do; it’s a way of living.

Some people might say, “My lifestyle is exercising.” That’s their life. They’re constantly working out and working on their bodies.

For Christians, our lifestyle should be one of worship. We’re constantly trying to worship God, please Him, hear what He has to say, and maintain our relationship with Him.

And here, in John 4:23, we see that God isn’t worshiped only in a particular place. He wants us to worship Him correctly, from our hearts. Worship doesn’t just happen at church. We worship God when we go to school, when we’re at home, and when we’re on vacation.

Scripture can and should dwell in us as we sing. Singing is worship, but it’s not just mindless activity. It’s also about letting God speak to us as we sing songs to Him.

Spirit-filled people—people who are Christians—sing from their hearts with thankfulness. Ultimately, worship means being thankful to God for what He has given us, namely Jesus.

Finally, worship is a sacrifice of praise offered through Jesus. There’s an element of thankfulness and continually offering things to God. It involves sacrifice.

I keep doing this gesture, and what I mean is that you’re giving your life to God. That’s what worship is. That’s how I try to boil it down.

Christianity Is More Than a Relationship

I do think the Christian faith is a relationship with God. That’s true. It is about having a relationship with Jesus. But even more important than simply having the relationship is what that relationship consists of.

God isn’t just a casual friend, right? You can have a relationship with a casual friend, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a husband or wife, or a father and son. We can have relationships as teachers and students, too.

But Christianity is more than just a relationship. It consists of a relationship in which we actually worship Jesus.

I don’t worship my kids. I shouldn’t, because that would make them idols. I don’t worship my wife, because that would make her an idol. I don’t worship sports or music. I don’t worship a boyfriend or girlfriend.

The only person we worship is Jesus.

I think that when I came to this realization—and I’m still trying to learn this—it changed my life more than almost any retreat I’ve ever attended.

Conclusion

It changed my life, and I’m grateful you’ve allowed me to share this with you. I think that if you really take this to heart, it will change your life. It will change the way you view Jesus and the way you view Christianity.

Hopefully, it will also change how you approach what we did earlier when we were discussing the Christian worldview. You’ll see that it’s not just an exercise we do in Sunday school. You want to make it real.

When you try to apply the Bible to life, current events, and conversations with your friends, that’s worship, too. You’re saying, “Hey, this stuff is important. Jesus is on the throne, reigning as King, and whatever He says is true, no matter what the world has to say.”

Jesus is always our ultimate priority, and our relationship with Him is one of worship.

Thanks, guys. That’s really my heart—not just as a worship leader or Sunday school teacher, but as a fellow Christian.