When we sing together as a church, we are not just aligning ourselves with each other, or with the created order as a whole. We are aligning it with the One who sings loud songs of exultation over his children, and who finished the Last Supper by singing a hymn with his friends.

Singing unites body and soul.
“My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed” (Ps. 71:23). It is wonderful to “make melody in your hearts,” rejoicing before the Lord in our innermost being, but singing aligns the body—the tongue, the throat, the chest, the diaphragm, the breath in the lungs, and the vibrations in the thorax—with the rejoicing in the soul, and by doing so reinforces it. By making a decision to sing with our bodies, we can lift our spirits and increase our joy (in part because God, by his grace, has created human beings to release endorphins and oxytocin when we sing). Body and soul are brought together as we praise: “my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Ps. 84:2).
Here are four ways singing unites.
1. Singing unites individuals with other believers.
Jennie Pollock made this point last month: songs unite us to one another, whether we are in church or at a football match, and reach the parts that other beers do not reach. Psychologists could talk for hours about how songs function as a “hive switch,” turning us from self-absorbed individuals into a self-denying collective. But it is obvious from the way music works: if multiple people talk at once, the meaning of each individual is lost, whereas if multiple people sing at once (and especially when they sing in harmony) the meaning of each individual line is heightened and strengthened by being united with others. It is a glorious picture of what the church is intended to be, and especially so when we remember that if we sing from (say) the Psalter, we are united with the dead as well as the living.
2. Singing unites humans with other living creatures.
The first noise you heard when you woke up this morning, if it wasn’t a vehicle or a small child, was probably the dawn chorus. Creation sings. It always has.
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Often when I see wicked rulers all around me, I wonder why God just does not deal with the lot of them – now! But perhaps he has a lamp amongst us as well. This also is further speculation, but something to consider. Philip Graham Ryken offers these thoughts: The flame in David’s lamp would never be extinguished. . . . Whatever punishment Solomon endured as the result of his sin was not God’s final judgment, therefore, but only God’s fatherly discipline. It was corrective judgment to preserve his people, not destroy them. This is an important principle to understand about the way God works in the world.

Why do you do what you do? If you are a Christian you should be doing ‘all things for the glory of God’ as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 10:31. That should be our bottom line. And we often read in Scripture of God doing something for his “name’s sake” – for the sake of his reputation and his glory. Here are a few of these passages;
1 Samuel 12:22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.
Psalm 23:3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Psalm 25:11 For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Ezekiel 20:44 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God.”
Revelation 2:3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.
I have written previously about these matters, and how we should do things for the honour and glory of God: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/04/29/that-the-world-may-know/
But what is quite interesting – and quite amazing – is that sometimes we read of God doing something for the sake of someone else! Since I am reading through the books of Kings right now, I find this often in regards to King David. Here are the main passages, with the phrases in bold, as well as something I will speak to in a moment about Yahweh ‘leaving a lamp’:
1 Kings 11:9-13 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.”
1 Kings 11:30-36 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel), because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did. Nevertheless, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of David my servant whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my statutes. But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand and will give it to you, ten tribes. Yet to his son I will give one tribe, that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen to put my name.
1 Kings 15:1-5 Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah. He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. And he walked in all the sins that his father did before him, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father.
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We must run with the utmost self-discipline.
The noble Isthmian or Corinthian games were usually hosted near to Corinth, and those who competed in the games, whether running or wrestling, were not to indulge themselves in gluttony and pleasures, but were to be temperate in all things, bearing all things, in order to win the conqueror’s crown. In those games, the runners and wrestlers accustomed themselves to a most temperate diet, by way of preparation for the race. The winners in those games were crowned with laurel, or ivy, or honoured with some similar reward.
In the same manner, the Apostle wants Christians to be most moderate in how they use the things of this world, and to abstain from anything at all that might stop their progress, or hinder them in their warfare.
All this is in order to obtain an “incorruptible” crown, that is, an eternal one, laid up in heaven for all who strive lawfully, and finish their course. Christian wrestlers expect a more noble crown than that corruptible one, won by those who participate in the such sporting events.
We may follow Paul’s own example in running the Christian race and acting the part of a champion, and smiting his adversary certainly and seriously. Paul says he earnestly “keeps down” the body (v.27), the body of sin, and the old man, and the lusts of the flesh, in order that they would be slain. He kept his body (properly so called), by virtue of spiritual discipline, to be subject to his spirit. We should do the same thing. The Apostle nurtured his body in such a way that in labours, and watchfulness, and fastings, it would hold out in its duty, and not be drawn away by passion from the Spirit., and so that the body of sin (as much as lay in him) would be destroyed.
Paul’s purpose in “keeping down” the body of sin, or the old man, was, “lest, if I should live in a different way than I advise others to live, I should be a castaway, or blotted out as a hypocrite from the number of the saints.” “Therefore you do the same thing that I do,” Paul says, “and to the same end.”
When he speaks of “castaways” here, the Apostle does not contrast it with being elect, but with being approved.