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More Than Words Sermon Series
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Worship has a huge part of our Sunday morning services and our lives. It draws so much out of us, which is why we're starting a new sermon series called More Than Words. Throughout this summer series, we'll be looking at the songs we sing and examining the scriptures and theology behind them. This way, we can sing them with more conviction, honesty, and genuine heart as we cry out to God.
The goal is simple: we want to help you understand not just what we're singing, but why we're singing it, and whether what we're singing is truly biblical and beneficial.
Why do songs mean so much to us? One reason is that music is deeply personal. God created us in a way that music has a profound impact on our lives. Studies show that music influences our brains, our bodies, and our overall well-being. Music can help us feel relaxed, release anxieties and tensions, and connect us spiritually to God.
So often, we come into church and sing a song we've sung before, but we go through the motions without really thinking about what we're singing. This series is designed to change that.
When thinking about a song, ask yourself important questions:
Is this song beneficial for me? Does it draw me to God? Does it encourage me to remember what God has done or who he is?
Who wrote this song? The songwriter brings their own influences, understanding of Scripture, Bible knowledge, church background, culture, and upbringing into their work. A worship song is an artist's rendering of the Bible or characteristics of God.
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What if we're singing a song by someone who believes differently than us? There are arguments on both sides. Truth is truth, and if a song describes God's characteristics truthfully, it ultimately reflects God's truth. However, we also don't want to seem like we're endorsing everything a group or artist says or does. For us as a staff, the lyrics matter most.
We've actually decided not to sing certain songs in church because the lyrics were theologically confusing or off. One example is "Another in the Fire" by Hillsong. The phrase "All my debt left for dead beneath the waters" could be misunderstood to suggest salvation comes through baptism—which is not scriptural. Salvation comes only through grace and faith in Jesus Christ. We didn't want people to be confused about this essential truth.
Our guide comes from 1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Test everything and then hold fast to what is good."
This is our heart: we want to test the things we sing as a corporate body of believers and then hold fast to what is good. There are songs we sing regularly because we know the truth in them is good and it draws us closer to God. Think of hymns like "Amazing Grace"—we know that truth is good when we sing it.
We want to give you resources to do this yourselves. On the sermon outlines, there's a QR code that takes you to our website where you can listen to all the songs we're singing this summer and find resources to help you check songs for scriptural accuracy. If you hear something on the radio, you'll have the ability to analyze that song yourself.
The song I chose for today is called "Sea of Victory." I'll be honest—I chose this song because it makes me a little uncomfortable and nervous. Here's why:
One of the struggles I've had in my life is hedging my prayers in practicality. When I would pray to God, I knew he could do something, but if the odds didn't seem like he would do it, I would always add, "God, if it's your will be done." What I was really saying was, "God, I don't actually think you're going to do this, so just let your will be done."
A couple of years ago, God really challenged me on this. I came to realize that God knows my heart. He knows I trust him. He knows that whatever he does, I know is good. He knows my heart leans toward trusting his will. But sometimes I'm too practical. Sometimes I don't have enough faith to ask God for big things.
I've learned, especially from my more charismatic brothers and sisters in Christ, that I need to be more bold in my prayers. Now I pray boldly, believing that God can do big things, that he will do big things, that only he can do miraculous things. This is an area I'm still growing in, but that's part of why I chose this song. I want to be reminded that I can be bold in my faith, that I can pray for God to bring victory in my life and in others' lives.
The first verse says: "The weapon may be formed, but it won't prosper. When darkness falls, it won't prevail."
This comes from Psalm 107, a psalm about God's redemption. It was written to remind and motivate God's people to praise him for what he had done and how he saved them. The psalm starts:
"Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he has redeemed from trouble." (Psalm 107:1-2)
In the second section of Psalm 107 (verses 10-16), we see God provides freedom from those who are in darkness and in chains:
"Some sat in darkness and the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the most high. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor. They fell down with none to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart."
Their sin caused them to enter darkness, but that darkness couldn't hold them because of God's faithful love. He delivered them. Their response was to remember and praise God for his faithfulness.
The song continues: "Cuz the God I serve knows only how to triumph. My God will never fail."
There are plenty of scriptures about God's victories for his people throughout the Old Testament:
"Now the Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand." (Psalm 20:6-7)
"For not in my bow do I trust, nor my sword can save me, but you have saved us from foes and have put to shame those who hate us." (Psalm 44:6-7)
"Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him." (Psalm 98:1)
The Old Testament is full of stories that point to God's faithfulness to his people. He has been faithful and always will be. The writers help the people remember: don't panic in difficult situations. Don't begin to disobey God. Instead, trust the Lord and remain faithful to him because he will be faithful to you. These scriptures should give us confidence to trust and follow God.
The same God of the Old Testament is our God as well. We can have confidence to trust and follow him because of that truth.
The challenge is that sometimes we only remember God's physical victories in our lives—victories over sickness, financial strain, broken relationships. But sometimes when we focus only on these physical victories, we stop short of what God has actually done. The victory that matters most is our victory over death itself.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reassures believers who had gone astray from the apostles' teaching. Some now believed there would be no resurrection of the dead. Paul writes in detail so they could have certainty of the truth and the joy that awaits them. He closes with assurance that as believers, they will experience victory over death:
"Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55)
Paul is challenging death itself, almost mocking and taunting it: "Death, where is your victory? I'm looking around but I don't see it. Where is your sting?"
He connects death to sin in verse 56: the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death—separation from God. But there's hope because of Jesus.
Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He was the ultimate fulfillment of the law. When he gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins, we could be made right with God.
Therefore, 1 Corinthians 15:57 says:
"Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Our victory is over death itself if we've trusted Jesus as our Savior. Our response should be to praise God and remember that the battle belongs to the Lord.
The second verse says there's power in the mighty name of Jesus. Philippians 2:9-11 says:
"Therefore, God has highly exalted him, Jesus, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."
The song says, "Every war he wages he will win." This is interesting because we don't see Jesus waging war in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. But in Revelation 19-20, we see Jesus's triumphant return:
"Then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness. He judges and makes wars." (Revelation 19:11)
What are the results of these wars?
"And the beast was captured and with it the false prophet...These two were thrown into the lake of fire that burns in sulfur, and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse." (Revelation 19:20)
Jesus defeats Satan and the false prophet. In the end, God wins. This should give us confidence that no matter what, God has been faithful. He proved his faithfulness throughout the Old Testament stories. Even in the sin of the Israelites, he remained faithful. We see it in Jesus—even in our sin, he's made a way for us to be made right with him. In the end, God will win. He's always faithful. That should cause us to praise him.
The song says, "I'm not backing down from any giant."
We have to be careful here. Pastor Matt Chandler has said that so often we get focused on wanting to be David in the story, but the reality is we're just like the terrified Israelites who are too afraid to stand up to the giant. We want to be the hero of the story, but we need to remember that God is ultimately the hero.
When David faced Goliath, he said:
"You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with the javelin but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied this day. The Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword or spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand." (1 Samuel 17:45-47)
David's confidence wasn't in his own abilities (which were impressive) or in his own experiences of victory (which were impressive). His confidence was in God and God's power to protect his people.
In the same way, our trust should remain in Jesus. It's in Jesus that we have hope. It's in Jesus that we've experienced grace. It's in Jesus that we have promises to look forward to. Because of Jesus, we will be victorious.
The song says, "Because I know how this story ends."
We know from Revelation that in the end, God wins. This should cause us to be confident in our faith.
The bridge says, "You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good."
This phrase comes from Genesis 50:20, where Joseph speaks to his brothers who had sold him into slavery:
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today."
Even though his brothers did something evil, because of God's sovereignty—the fact that God is in control over all things—God meant it for good.
Sometimes God allows evil to happen. Sometimes God allows difficult things to happen. We see this in Acts where opposition in the church occurred, and God allowed difficult things to happen. But when there's trust and faith, we can see that God can turn it for good.
James 1 says:
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."
So often our desire is to escape the struggle, to get relief from the challenge. But sometimes God desires to use difficulty to create in us perseverance, a steadfastness that shapes us.
There will be difficult times in our lives, times when we need to cry out to God to save us, when we desire relief from this moment. Sometimes he will give us that relief. But sometimes he won't.
In those moments when he doesn't, it's so easy to believe the lie of Satan that God doesn't love us, that we've done something against God and therefore he's choosing not to save us. But that's not God. God is faithful always. Sometimes we need to be reminded that this moment of pain has a purpose. Even if we don't understand it, we can trust that God turns it for good.
What should we be thinking about as we sing this song? What are the key takeaways?
First, this song teaches us that God is sovereign and victorious. Through his character, through his works, and through Jesus, we are victorious.
Second, God is faithful. He's always faithful. We can always place our trust in him because he never changes.
There are three types of worship songs. Some proclaim who God is—his character and nature, that he's true, good, and faithful. Some remind us of what he has done. And some are written for us, meant to encourage us through what we've received from God.
This song is really the third type. We sing it as an encouragement to be reminded of what God has given us. He's given us victory over death. We can have confidence that no matter what we're walking through in our lives, God is good and ultimately we will see a victory.
We should pray with confidence. We might see that victory now, and so we continue to pray. We ask God boldly for things, knowing that he can and he will do big things. We ask honestly. We ask faithfully, trusting in him that no matter what he does is good.
But in this moment, God, I'm going to ask that you do a miracle. We pray confidently, yet we also know with certainty that in the end—even if it's not until we get to heaven—that is worth celebrating and praising God for. We have victory over death.
We should walk with confidence because in the end, God will be victorious. Be bold in your faith. Walk with confidence because you know that in the end you will see a victory.
When life is tough and we face challenges that require us to persevere, we should worship through it all. The last lines of the song are: "Going to worship my way through this battle. Going to worship my way through."
My challenge for you is this: Believe confidently that God can. God has provided victory through Jesus. Walk boldly because of that confidence. And ultimately, no matter what you're going through, find ways to worship God through it all.
