What matters most to God is what fuels our obedience, and it should be love. When we come before the Lord in song, it’s not enough to merely be engaged with the words intellectually, it’s not even enough to follow through on what we sing, we must be a people that love God in these realities. That’s what the Lord desires.

Over the past few decades, there has been a tremendous emphasis placed upon exposition in the church. The benefits of this are too many to count. A revival has taken place where a number of churches have moved away from a surface level study of God’s word (like skipping a rock on the ocean), to an in-depth comprehensive study of the text––exposition (like dropping an anchor down to the ocean floor).
After all, if God’s word is breathed by Him and therefore sourced in Him, then it is incumbent upon us as His people to draw the last drops of sweet nectar that we can from every single word. Paul tells Timothy
All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Tim 3:16–17
Since the Scriptures are profitable to equip us for every single good work prepared for us, we should not just know a little bit of them, we must live in them (cf. Matt 4:4; Eph 2:10).
To that end, many pastors have written books on the topic of expository preaching. That is, preaching that seeks to understand a text within its larger context and draw out the God-laden meaning from the words and grammar that has been used by the Biblical writers. G. Campbell Morgan put it this way, “The sermon is the text repeated more fully.” That’s the idea.
In a related but slightly different direction, in 2010, Ken Ramey wrote a book entitled, Expository Listening. His work is a primer on how God’s people should approach listening to an expository sermon. It is based on passages like Jas 1:22, “But become doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” Building off of the momentum, in 2017, Josh Neimi released the book entitled, Expository Parenting. The book aims to show parents that they must expose and lay bare the pure milk of the Scriptures to their children.
With that being said, you opened this article expecting to learn about a different type of exposition. At this point, I do want to speak about expository singing.
Now, there are two ways that we might approach this topic. The first would be more for worship leaders. Expository singing could mean the way that writing hymns and spiritual songs should be done, based on the exposition or explanation of the meaning of the Scriptures. That’s one way, but that’s not what I intend with this article.
The second approach is seen in thinking about expository singing, not from the approach of creating content, but rather based on how we approach the songs that we sing to the Lord each Sunday (or throughout the week). Well-written hymns and spiritual songs are expository in nature. The Scriptures are the light unto our path, and good praise songs will emphasize the light of the Lord through His word and bring us near to Him (Ps 119:105).
With that in mind, there are four principles that I want to deliver to you that should cause you to enjoy God more through song when rightly appropriated. In finding your enjoyment in God, you bring honor to Him in fulfilling your created purpose… the exaltation of His name (Ps 34:3).
Here is a question for you, what makes a good Christian song? Is it the date in which it was written (a pre-1900 hymn with preferably some old English mixed in)? Is it the melody that the song has or its tempo, upbeat or slow? What about the instruments used or lack thereof (drums, guitars, cymbals, harps, a cappella)? How about the number of times the chorus is sung? Here’s the answer. None of those make a good Christian song, inherently.
What makes a good praise song is the words. It’s the content. After Jesus’ ostensible disciples depart from Him, there’s this precious interaction between Jesus and his disciples…
So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”
John 6:67–68
Where else can we go, but you Lord? We sing songs that make much of the God of our salvation.
But here’s the rub, how many of those words do you actually think about when you sing them on Sunday morning (or ideally throughout the week)? It is so ingrained in our culture and in our world to value songs that have catchy beats and rifts and then to mindlessly puppet the words the artist sings. That has no place in Christianity. This is the first principle of expository singing, we must be engaged singers.
We Must be Engaged Singers
There are two quotes that I use often but have never been able to find (if you can identify them please let me know). The first is from Charles Spurgeon (at least I think) concerning sanctification, “we must move, but He must move us.” I love that quote, but I can’t find it anywhere. The second pertains to our topic. Paul Washer once said (at least I think) that “we never lie more than in our singing of songs of praise.” Why would Paul Washer say that?
It’s all too common for people to sing glorious lyrics on Sunday morning but not truly mean them. If I told you, “I like your outfit,” but I didn’t mean it, what would you call me? You’d call me a liar. But doesn’t that happen with how we approach God through song? Yes, I said “we,” I am guilty of this too. Here are some relatively well-known lyrics… through introspection, answer as to whether or not you meant them fully when you last sang them.
“My soul finds rest in God alone; All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer, King; I will tell the wondrous story how, my lost estate to save, in His boundless love and mercy He the ransom freely gave; When morning gilds the skies, My heart awaking cries, May Jesus Christ be praised; I will not boast in anything, No gifts, no pow’r, no wisdom.”
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Sin has affected all of us. Not one person has escaped it—even the Son of God, who took on the sin of those who would believe in Him. Jesus didn’t have sin, of course, but was made to be sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). Our minds, our bodies, our souls have been wholly effected by original sin. Let us not look past what it can do to any part of us, including our brains.

During my senior year of college, I was lying down on my bed one evening reading some tweets from a Christian theologian. As I continued scrolling, suddenly I began to feel extremely cold. As the coldness set in, my heart—from out of nowhere—started to pound like I had just run a mile. As it pounded harder and harder, I began experiencing heart palpitations (where your heart skips beats). Then my breathing got quicker and tighter. I finally set up and vividly remember thinking, “Am I having a heart attack? Am I dying?”
After about five minutes, I walked out of my room and told my roommate what had just happened. Unsure of what really happened, I described how I felt. His girlfriend was there and said, “That’s exactly how anxiety attacks feel.”
Up to that point in my life, I had never experienced something like that before. It was dark, fear-inducing, and left me feeling vulnerable. Let me put this in perspective from my vantage point. I absolutely hate vomiting—with every fiber of my being. When I get nauseous, I get so afraid that I’m getting sick. I do everything I can to not vomit. And yet, when the anxiety attacked ceased, I remember walking to my car thinking, “I would rather throw up a hundred times than do that again.”
Millions upon millions of people suffer from anxiety attacks, panic attacks, clinical anxiety, etc. just like my story above. Many much worse than what I went through—even Christians.
Anxiety and the Church
There is a stigma within the evangelical church around the topic of clinical anxiety. Many Christians—a lot of whom I respect and admire—simply do not believe it exists. They see no evidence for chemical imbalances. I know of many close to me who would have a totally different opinion on this. And that’s okay.
However, many Christians have done damage to other Christians who suffer in this way because they don’t believe chemical anxiety, depression, etc. are real. In turn, they say the problem is not the brain malfunctioning, but their own sin. They send Philippians 4:6 to suffering Christians and say, “Just believe this more.” But this isn’t a Philippians 4:6 issue, but an issue that has its roots in total depravity.
What Does Total Depravity Have to Do with This?
As one who believes in the doctrine of total depravity, I think it’s sensible to believe in clinical anxiety (or other mental health issues). I think it’s difficult not to because of total depravity.
At its foundation, total depravity explains that sin isn’t a mere hiccup in our spiritual makeup or that, deep down, we’re good people who do bad things. No, sin affects our whole being—mind, soul, body. Ephesians 2:1 says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” We weren’t sick people, but dead people. We didn’t need to “turn over a new leaf,” but become a new person altogether.
And that was the effect of original sin. Just as original sin made us spiritually dead—incapable of obtaining salvation on our own—it also affected our whole being—including our brain.
Furthermore, total depravity doesn’t mean we are as bad as we could be, but that sin has permeated our entire self.
RC Sproul explains:
…it means that the fall [of man] is so serious that it affects the whole person. Our fallenness captures and grips our human nature and affects our bodies—that’s why we become ill and die. It affects our minds and our thinking (brackets and italics mine).
It affects our mind and the way we think. It impacts every part of us. And because of that is why I believe the Bible gives room for clinical anxiety. Our brains have malfunctioned because of sin. The human mind is not what it ought to be. Sin came into the world (Gen. 3) and caused catastrophic damage—to say the very least.
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Fasting from information is one way for us to come away when taking time off work is not possible and the demands of ministry and family can’t be avoided. When times of solitude are few and far between, we can still reduce the surrounding noise.

A Still and Quiet Mind is scheduled to be released on June 22; pre-order here.
REST YOUR THOUGHTS
I’m sitting outside in my favorite chair while I write. The sun warms my face while a strong breeze hits my body. The temperature is perfect. I can’t help but pause from my writing to enjoy the simple pleasure of being outside.
I live in a suburban neighborhood, and it’s surprising how much wildlife I notice when I stop to pay attention. A squirrel trounces by like it owns our yard. Two red-breasted robins fly past, a crow lands on our fence, and a yellow bird of unknown variety pecks for juicy morsels in the grass. A bumblebee lazily drinks from a vibrant flowering bush.
I’ve been stuck inside all winter, and suddenly—it’s spring. I close my eyes and enjoy the surround-sound chorus of caws and whistles. The pleasant cacophony of bird calls is much louder than I realized when I was focused on my work. Good words and good feelings fill my mind and my soul. Warmth. Peace. Stillness. Sunshine. Rest. Thank you, God, for this moment.
I’m thankful for the break. Life is busy these days. I often spend the entire day working on my computer, only to find myself drawn to my phone every time I take a break. I love my work. I’m also thankful for the convenience, connection, and entertainment I find each time I open my phone. Still, the constant intake of information, data, and opinions sometimes leaves my mind filled with restless, racing thoughts by the end of the day.
Knowing my mind’s tendency toward exhaustion, I purposefully look for moments when I can set my phone aside and step outside. I don’t need to travel far. A few minutes sitting in my backyard or a short meander to the neighborhood park is often enough to help me to clear my mind. It’s good to breathe the fresh air and allow myself to simply exist without doing work or consuming information. My mind is most at peace when I create purposeful space to pause in restful and beautiful outside places without the company of my phone.
I think these moments help me to put into practice Jesus’s invitation to set aside my worries, stress, and fear. I look at the birds and the flowers and all he has created and thank God for his goodness and care for me (see Matt. 6:25–30). This is rest for my mind. It’s how I pull my attention away from the exhaustion of worry and work and choose to meditate on the beauty and goodness of all God has created.
REST FROM CONSTANT DISTRACTION AND HURRY
Our minds need rest just as much as our hearts and souls do. This rest can be difficult to find because many of us live in a constant state of hurry and distraction. We throw ourselves into work and schedule ourselves to the brim. We avoid silence and solitude and use digital technology every moment we are forced to be alone.
While I am quick to embrace the many benefits of technology, statistics force us to reckon with the concerning impact that smart-phones, social media, and mindless consumption of information and entertainment can have on the state of our minds. High levels of smartphone usage increase people’s likelihood of anxiety and their perceived levels of stress.1 Experts have attributed alarming rises in teen suicide and depression in part to the introduction of social media and the smartphone.2 Unchecked technology usage can disrupt sleep and decrease our desire to seek out in-person community. Without adequate sleep and people to help us sort through our thoughts, the process of change can become more difficult.
It’s ironic that we often turn back to technology to alleviate our thought-related problems. Our phones have become “digital pacifiers” that help us to avoid difficult feelings and problematic thoughts.3 I realized this tendency in myself when the Screen Time app was released on my iPhone. I was surprised by how much my phone usage increased on days when I was anxious. Instead of pausing to know my thoughts or pray through my thinking, I would reach for my phone and scroll.
Richard Foster has called the distraction of constant technology “the primary spiritual problem in contemporary culture.”4 The multitasking encouraged by internet-enabled technologies has hijacked our attentional capacity.5 This makes it more difficult for us to focus for any length of time on spiritual disciplines. We have less space, desire, and ability to examine our thoughts in the solitude of our own minds. We have fewer moments of quiet and less ability to concentrate on bringing our thoughts to God in prayer for any length of time.
In response to our hurry and distraction, God extends an invitation. As I look through Scripture, I imagine him speaking these words to you and to me: Come away to a restful place (see Mark 6:31). Slow down and savor the beauty and goodness in the world I have created. Let me show you how it reveals who I am (see Matt. 6:25–30).
COME AWAY AND GET SOME REST
When Jesus saw his disciples overcome by weariness from their work, he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Come away. It’s a needed invitation. To come away is to separate yourself from something. In the disciples’ case, they needed separation from the hustle of ministry. They moved away from people to an isolated place where they could be alone. They changed their location and context to better accommodate their need for rest and communion with God.
What about in your case? Consider what hurries and distracts you. What exhausts your mind? What puts your thoughts into hyperdrive? What blocks your self-reflection or comes between you and time spent praying your thoughts to God? What might you need to come away from?
For me, the answer is clear. My work hurries me. A constant intake of information distracts me. I read the news while eating lunch, listen to audiobooks while doing chores, and read books or watch TV in my spare moments. Text messages, video chats, meetings, and work projects fill my day. There is nothing wrong with all these activities. They are good gifts that often help me to make the best use of my time and mental energy. At the same time, too many of these activities without a break leads to information overload. My mind fills with restless thoughts that can distract me from looking at myself and connecting to God.
Incessant mental chatter.* This may be the type of thought I struggle with the most. The speed of my thoughts tends to correlate with the amount of mental work I do in any given season. My mental load follows me to bed, where I continue creating grocery lists, rewriting sentences, pondering work problems, considering how I will respond to a text, and reviewing my to-do list in my mind. To break this cycle, I need to purposefully step away from work at various points throughout the day. I need to come away.
For me, coming away looks like purposeful times of solitude away from other people. It looks like starting my morning with God through Scripture and prayer. It also looks like purposeful times when I distance myself from information overload.
I first completed a digital detox after reading Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism.6 A few years later, I was introduced to the concept of reading deprivation in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.7 I have come to think of reading deprivation in terms of fasting from information. For a week in the summer of 2020, I stepped away from all unnecessary information. I spent a lot of time sitting outside journaling. I had more time to pray. Sometimes I didn’t think much and just rested my mind. Other times, I searched my thoughts deeply. I learned things about myself I had not previously known. The true content of my thoughts and state of my heart became clearer.
Fasting from information is one way for us to come away when taking time off work is not possible and the demands of ministry and family can’t be avoided. When times of solitude are few and far between, we can still reduce the surrounding noise.
I encourage you to try this type of fast at least once as you engage this process of changing your thoughts. You can do this by picking a time frame during which you will fast from all unnecessary intake of information. The time could be fifteen minutes, an hour, a day, or up to a week. During this time, you will avoid TV, music, books (except the Bible), social media, podcasts, video games, news, and all other forms of media and information intake.
Julia Cameron points out that stepping away from information in this way often frees up peoples’ time.8 Consider using some of this newly created extra space for the journaling, mental reflection, and prayer-based strategies we have already discussed. Then use the remainder of your extra time to slow down and practice activities that allow your mind to rest.
Pick up forgotten hobbies. Finish projects around the house. Set an hour aside for a walk or hike. Sit outside. Bake cookies and eat them slowly. Plant a tree. Play with your kids. Turn your attention toward savoring the beauty and goodness of all God has created. I’ll give you some ideas of how you might do this in the next section. Let these times of reflective meditation on God’s creation remind you of who God is and all he has done for you.
To pre-orders: https://www.amazon.com/Still-Quiet-Mind-Strategies-Changing/dp/1629959219/

* The strategies in this chapter can be helpful for any type of thoughts, but they may be especially helpful for the category of racing thoughts and incessant mental chatter that was listed in the introduction.

See Sei Yon Sohn et al., “Prevalence of Problematic Smartphone Usage and Associated Mental Health Outcomes amongst Children and Young People: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and GRADE of the Evidence,” BMC Psychiatry 19, no. 356 (November 2019), https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186 /s12888-019-2350-x.
See Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, September 2017, https://www.theatlantic .com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.
See interview with Tristan Harris in The Social Dilemma, directed by Jeff Orlowski (Los Gatos, CA: Netflix, 2020), https://www.netflix .com/title/81254224.
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, special anniversary ed. (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018), preface, Kindle (emphasis in original).
See Joseph Firth et al., “The ‘Online Brain’: How the Internet May Be Changing Our Cognition,” World Psychiatry 18, no. 2 (June 2019): 119–29.
Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2019).
See Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, 25th anniversary ed. (New York: TarcherPerigee, 2016), chap. 4, Kindle.

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