When God Became My Song

0:00 Most of you know this already, but I am not John Piper. My name is Marshall Siegel, and I'm the president and CEO of Desiring God, and I've been a part of Desiring God as a ministry for 14 years now. I've been able to serve and travel and minister with Pastor John and the rest of our team. It's an amazing joy to be a part of a ministry that changed my life 20 years ago. I'll come back to that in a little bit. But before I do that, as I prayed about tonight and thought about the theme for this night, why we sing. That's what we're here for. I couldn't help but think about my local church, Cities Church, back in St. Paul, Minnesota. That's where we live. I work full-time at Desiring God, but I'm one of eight pastors, elders, at Cities Church.

0:57 I'm a non-vocational elder there. And I won't get into all the details of our last couple of months, but back in January, we had a group of very angry protesters that broke in and disrupted our service on a Sunday morning. It was a terrible scene. Some of you might have seen it on the news. They yelled and they chanted until the police came and we had to send everybody home that morning. And the pastors, we huddled up before we left the building. we made the decision, which felt like a hard decision at the time. We made the decision that we were going to gather again that evening and we were going to finish the service that we'd started. We don't typically have an evening service. And I will never forget that night together.

1:51 I'll remember a lot of things. I'll remember the sermon that Pastor Jonathan gave from John 13. I'll remember the prayer that Pastor David prayed. I'll remember the hugs and the tears before and during and after. But what I'll remember most is the singing.

2:13 City's Church, we had never sang like we sang that night. It was loud. And it was heavy. It was earnest. Serious. And it was unshakably. Happy.

2:36 And as I thought about that night again this week, preparing for today, I asked, why did we do that? After that had happened, with all the stress and uncertainty of what had just happened, what might happen the next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that, why would we sing? well you know at least most of you that's why you're here tonight we sang that night to say to God we trust you even now even after all of that we trust you and we're gonna follow you and obey you no matter what it costs no matter what inconvenience or opposition comes, and we sang because we wanted to say to him, we love you. With all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, we love you. You are our treasure in the field, and you are our treasure now in this valley that you've given to us.

3:53 that's why we sing, right? We could just get together every week and we could just say that we believe in Jesus and that we'll obey him. We could just spend this whole night tonight. We could just recite Bible verses and read creeds together. We could just say it. But if you know him as Lord and Savior, if you know this Jesus that we're singing about and singing to tonight, if you know him, if you really know him, it's not enough to just say it.

4:25 We have to sing. we see this all over the Bible. And we see it in verses like Isaiah 12, verse two. I thought this would be such a great place to anchor our time of worship tonight. Isaiah 12, verse two, it says, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and will not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song. And he has become my salvation. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. Why do we sing? I see four big reasons in just that one sentence. First, because God is our salvation. He saved us. I was dead in my trespasses and sins and unbelief, and he pulled me out of the pit.

5:23 He sent his son to die for me. He saved me from sin and death and the hell that I deserved. He bore on the cross our sins against him. are you battling guilt or shame or persistent temptation right now? We have a savior. We sing because he saved us. Second, we sing because he's Lord. I will trust, it says, and will not be afraid for the Lord God is my strength. The savior that we sing about, he is Lord. He saved us and he rules over us. All of our allegiance is to him. And any other allegiance that we have in this life, to a spouse, to children, to a church, to a workplace, any other allegiance we have, we have for his sake, for his glory.

6:25 We sing because he's savior and we sing because he's Lord. We sing to say again and again, we belong to you. third, he's our strength. I will trust and will not be afraid for the Lord God is my strength. He doesn't just save us and then leave us behind. No, he saves us and then he stays with us and helps us. He never leaves us or forsakes us and he makes sure minute by minute of every single day that we have absolutely everything that we need. Even when we feel like we don't have what we need, We have what we need because he's our strength. And he works in us by his almighty strength, by his spirit that lives within us. He works in us everything that he asks us to do or say or sacrifice.

7:20 Are you feeling weak tonight? If you'll trust him, he will be your strength. You don't have to give up. and fourth, we sing because he's our song. The Lord God is my strength and my song, and he's become my salvation. He's not just our forgiveness and our direction and our help, but he's also our song, our joy. We found more joy in him than we found in anything else combined. I hope that's true for you.

8:05 And if you haven't experienced Jesus that way, if you haven't experienced that kind of joy in him, I have good news for you tonight. I'm so glad that you're here to sit under the word and to sing with us. Psalm 1611, in your presence, in his presence is fullness of joy. And at his right hand are pleasures forevermore. and when he says in his presence, in your presence, there's fullness of joy. He's not just talking about joys that are around him or before him. No, this fullness and this foreverness is the joy that we find in him.

8:55 Psalm 43, four, I will go to the altar of God to God, my exceeding joy. He is the joy. He is the pleasure. His presence is paradise. And it would be so even if everything else that we ever loved and wanted was taken away from us. That's what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth, joy of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. So is he your song tonight? Thank you.

9:57 I remember when Jesus became my song, and I'll end here. Instead of coming back to how desiring God changed my life, it really was a page in a book. It was a sentence. I had grown up in a Christian home with loving parents and had been a Christian myself for a number of years by the time I went to college. I was reading my Bible most days, spending time in the Bible in prayer, while I was at school there at Wake Forest. I was part of a faithful Bible preaching church and part of a community called Young Life that was reaching out to high school students. I was doing ministry, evangelizing, discipling high school students in those years. And then in a moment, in a sentence, I remember where I was. God suddenly flooded all of that.

10:52 Everything that I had known and felt about Jesus, he flooded all of that. with new meaning and color. But to get there, God had to confront me first. When I first read these sentences, they tackled me where I sat and they have never let me go to this day. Here are the key sentences.

11:15 It says, Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. Read it again. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there will not be there. this is the sentence. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven. It is a way to get people to God. it's John Piper God is the gospel page 47 the gospel is a way to get people to God.

12:15 The gospel is a way to get me to God. It was the kind of discovery that was both devastating and thrilling. It's devastating because you realize just how much you've missed for so long, but also thrilling because you've stumbled into this land that you've never seen before, this ocean that you've never sailed before, this amazing meal that you've never tasted before. The God we're about to see here in Ephesians 1, the God that we're singing about and to tonight, this God is not just the only way to heaven. He is what makes heaven worth wanting. he is the great meal he is the wild and awesome ocean he is the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of a great price he is our savior our lord our strength and he is our song pray with me O great God, as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants our souls for you.

13:42 we long we ache not just for deliverance from sin from sickness from conflict we don't just long for forgiveness we don't just long for healing or for provision or for relief or reconciliation we want all those things and you're a good father and you graciously give them but no we're praying for all those things, but more than all those things, we're praying for you.

14:16 We want you, Jesus. Our souls thirst for God, for the living God, not just for the good and perfect gifts that you give, but for the perfect and satisfying gifts that you are. We have a thousand reasons to sing tonight. and by the end of the night, I trust that we'll have even more. And so we pray our great song, would you come now through your word and would you speak? Open up the fountain of your glory for us, your mercy, your wisdom, your power, your joy. For we pray this in Jesus' name.