Living the life of Heaven

Audio: https://www.daleappleby.net/index.php/mp3-sermons/51-recent-sermons/985-the-god-who-sings

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkkTFTbFBz4

1. The God who Sings   Rev 4-5

Introduction

Singing is a powerful action that God placed within creation to intensify our enjoyment in him. If however our singing is for the glory of God, and not merely entering into some feel good state, it must share in the way God enjoys himself. I had a sense about this early in my Christian experience even if I couldn’t get to the depth of what was wrong. Some months after coming to Christ, and another young man followed me, we came out of church one morning, looked at each other and asked, “We come here Sunday by Sunday say, ‘Praise the Lord, Hallelujah’ and are not changed.” When some months back famed Hillsong talent Marty Sampson declared he’d lost his faith this nonplussed many people; I think this is because people no longer apply the test of the cross. In his famous book on The Cross of Christ John Stott remarked that you don’t find congregational singing in mosques, pagodas or temples. This is because there is a unique quality to the joy that the death of Jesus imparts through forgiveness to someone’s heart. Our singing to the Lord is so profound because it involves a share in his own joy-filled life.

In a delightful picture about future salvation we read in Zephaniah, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (3:17). What transforms this from a delightful image into something we can share in are the accounts of Christ’s singing in the New Testament.

After the Last Supper on the way to Gethsemane Jesus led the disciples to “sing a hymn” (Matt 26:30; Mark 14:30). This was a Hallel psalm, a psalm of “praise” (Pss 113-118). Jesus is confessing with his lips, whatever he is feeling in his heart, that the Father is worthy of his sacrificial death. That Jesus sings after ascending to heaven is how Paul applies David’s words from the psalms in Romans, “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.”” (Rom 15:8-9 citing Ps 18:49). Jesus is pictured praising the Lord in the midst of the nations.  Even clearer is the description in Hebrews 2:12, ““I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.””  “Congregation” is ekklesia, church. Christ is praising the Father in church (cf. Rev 1:12-13). Paul’s description of congregational praise, “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. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:16f.), involves Jesus own S/spirit of praise and adoration of his Father powerfully working in our midst.

Even more illuminating is that when Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus is a “minister in the holy places” (leitourgos) it uses a term based on Old Testament patterns of temple service indicating that Jesus is our “worship/liturgy leader”. All of this is far more powerful and wonderful than we can imagine or confine to our individual experience. Since we are gathered around Christ with the angels (Heb 12:18-24), we can share in their enthusiasm in the Lord.

Angels Singing

I was in a group singing and praying recently and I was struck by something I had never seen before. It was about what happened in heaven that transformed the angelic throng from being speakers about God to singers to God. There is precedent for this in the Old Testament. In Job there’s a description of how the angels responded to God’s wonderful work in creating. “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7 cf. 1:6; 2:1). The angels were sharing in God’s great delight in creating us (Prov 8:30-31). But something much more remarkable than the first creation leads to a radical change of voice in the celestial world as described in Revelation 4-5.

When John has his glorious vision of the throne room of God we are told, “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”” (v.8)….“They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”” (v.10-11). These wonderfully enlightened creatures are not at all like some Christians I know, they are never passive, in face to face encounter with the glory of God they are pure dynamism (Job 1:6; Matt 18:10; Luke 1:19; Rev 8:2). Their heavenly voices must be like those of the seraphim Isaiah heard in the temple, who “called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.” (Isa 6:3-4). But they only start to sing in the next chapter of Revelation. “And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”” (Rev 5:9-10)

The secret of what turns the angelic chorus from speaking into singing is the revelation that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Rev 5:5) And that he has conquered as “a Lamb, standing (i.e. raised) as slaughtered (i.e. crucified)” (Rev 5:6). It is an insight into the gravity, grandeur and greatness of the death and resurrection of Jesus that gives to the angelic host the gift of song. A song shaped and imparted by the sacrifice of the blood of the cross that is uncontrolled, unrestrained and ecstatic. Ultimately, they sing because Jesus sings to the Father about his glorious victory. They sing because the Word in the Spirit which upholds their being directs them to their harmonious destiny in Christ with the whole creation (Eph 1:9-10). When Paul testifies in Colossians, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Christ), 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Col 1:19-20), he means that the angels have been brought into a glorious unity of purpose and goal with redeemed humanity.

They are surely excited by what Paul describes in Ephesians, “I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” (Eph 3:14-17). If the blood of the cross has reunited the heavenly and earthly worlds there can be no limit to its power. This is a spectacular panorama of a single great unified family; but to understand something of the depth of its implications for us we must ground it more thoroughly in the life of Christ. The angels see in full now what we sinners see only in part; this is what qualifies them to minister to us (Heb 1:14).

A New Jesus

Revelation speaks of the “new song” (5:9; 14:3), a new quality of song that only the holy angels and the redeemed in heaven can learn, a song that comes from a blood washed guiltless heart (Heb 10:22). Then in an image that reminds the reader of the conquest of the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Rev 15:2; Ex 14:30), those who have defeated the beast “sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb”. As the Passover sacrifice was followed by the exodus out of Egypt and the annihilation of the armies of Pharaoh so Jesus in his death is the real Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and in his resurrection brings into being a new creation for all who believe in him (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). What must not escape our attention is that this transformation is something that Christ himself had to go through in our place.

The new song is the song of Jesus’ own liberation from the power of sin, curse and death.  Jesus really did become the wages of sin on the cross, he truly took the place of the ungodly (Rom 6:23; 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21). Here is a clear statement from Paul about what Christ underwent, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.” (Rom 6:9). As bearing our law breaking (Gal 3:13; 1 Pet 2:24) and coming under God’s judgment in our place Jesus was overpowered, even if not defeated, by all the forces of darkness. If the cross is the Father’s “NO!” to our wickedness carried in Christ (Mark 15:34) then the resurrection is the Father’s “YES!” to Jesus and so to us (Acts 13:30-33; Rom 1:4).  Jesus is forever celebrating with us and the angelic creation all the goodness and wisdom of the Father’s great plan of salvation.

The Transforming Power of Song

Does our singing in church do anything besides making us and hopefully God happy? The answer should be a definite “Yes”, for we are conformed to what we sing. In Isaiah 58 the Lord promises a revival, but under certain conditions, “share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him…. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” (58:7, 8). Then in a later chapter he proclaims a theme which Jesus took up as a platform for his own mission, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” (Luke 4:18-19). Since Jesus carried these heart desires when he spoke through Isaiah and when he appeared on the earth, he still carries them today. I can remember when we used to sing then words and I believe that the same Spirit which filled Christ as he preached from Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth was filling us. All such expressions are surely part of the new song and a motivation where possible to sing scripture (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).

We should examine carefully what we are singing because we become what we sing. Many contemporary Christian songs are individualistic and self-centred and no challenge to the materialistic culture in which we live. We need the Spirit who inspired the great truths of scripture to abide in us so that entering the chorus of the kingdom of God with the angels we might see Jesus as they see him and be empowered to serve him unquestioningly as they do.

New Hearing

Praise and worship is a place of spiritual warfare, a struggle that is carried on inside of us. A friend shared that during an extended period of being held captive for their faith the one person in their group whose life fell to pieces was the individual who didn’t make worshiping the Lord their highest calling. I have counselled many people to begin their day with the “sacrifice of praise” (Heb 13:15).

Someone sent me a letter once describing his singing voice as dreadful, something which has been said to me too, and wondering whether he was obliged to praise God in song. This is all a confusion, worship in Spirit and truth isn’t about our experience of God but God’s experience of us (John 4:24; Rom 12:1-2). Since the Lord hears us in the new creation in Christ, he has intense pleasure in our praise and worship. Having learned to sing some of my prayers I am sure I am a part of this great scene in Revelation, and so are you, “And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they (shall) reign on the earth.””. (Rev 5:8-9). Through joining in the heavenly chorus in prayer and praise we are becoming part of the way in which Jesus establishes his kingdom on earth. (Spend next week on the divine council.)

Roar like Lambs

We prayed for someone’s husband recently who is reengaging with the ministry of “worship leading” after many years. As I prayed over this man’s future, I felt the Lord was speaking about prophetic worship in terms of sharing in the heavenly ministry of the glorified Jesus as both the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Lamb of God (Rev 5:5-6). There’s a powerful connection across scripture between the roar of a lion and the prophetic voice. From Amos 3:7-8, “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret plan to his servants the prophets. 8 The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” and then from Revelation 10:1, 3, 11, a “mighty angel…called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring… “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.””. The call of God is to roar like the Lion of Judah but with the gentleness of a Lamb. There is a prophetic roar in Revelation 10:7 concerning the fulfillment of “the mystery of God” when, ““The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”” (Rev 11:15). This is that longed for day when God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28; cf. Matt 6:10; Eph 1:9-10). “Roaring lambs” will sing, pray and prophesy with the authority of Jesus the Lion and the settled heart assurance of Jesus the Lamb. This shouldn’t surprise us for the parable of the sheep and the goats tells us that sheep will rule the world (Matt 25:34, 46; John 21:15-16).

Conclusion

This teaching is a reminder that there’s much more in scripture than we usually notice. And that the fulness of everything that God wills to share with us can only ever be found in Jesus as the slain and risen Lamb. This is a message about the gospel. Not a gospel limited to the earthly dimensions of the life of Christ but one whose ascended and heavenly glory exceeds all our imaginations.  Since God in the flesh is currently the song leader in heaven we can confidently say that God himself is a singer (Zeph 3:17), and to want to be in the image of God revealed in Christ (Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4) is to sing with him by the power of his Spirit with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (cf. Matt 23:37). May our hearts always stay open to the great things the Spirit of our Father wants to reveal to us about his Son so we may share more and more fully in his wonderful life.