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  • Writer's pictureDr Darryl Soal

What gets our creative juices flowing?


What gets our creative juices flowing? That's what we're going to look at as we see how God brought the people of God out of Egypt and what was their response as they came through the Red Sea. We read that then in chapter 15 of Exodus.


“Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: "I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. "Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble. By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. "The enemy boasted, 'I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them.' But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. "Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you- majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? You stretched out your right hand and the earth swallowed them. "In your unfailing love, you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia. The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away; terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone- until your people pass by, O Lord, until the people you bought pass by. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance- the place, O Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established. The Lord will reign for ever and ever." When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them: "Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea."


I think you can imagine for a moment, as this day dawned for the Israelites standing on the seashore of the Red Sea, as the sun came up over the scene, it must have been one of the most beautiful sunrises to ever dawn upon God's people. Not only were they now free from Egypt and from slavery but they had put a whole sea between them and the Egyptians. And now they were standing and seeing how God had worked. Strewn around them, where the debris of the crushed army of the Egyptians, washed up on the seashore. Even as the sun rose in the east it dawned on them, not just in the sky, but it dawned in their hearts, as they responded in praise. Here you see out of that sunrise, out of the waves and the suffering, came praise to God. Out of the suffering as slaves, and the fright, and the flight as runners and refugees, now Israel stood as a witnesses of God's awesome salvation of his people. Now from hearts that overflowed they worshipped, and we have recorded for us here one of the first complete worship songs in the whole Bible.


Don't we also, in response to God's goodness, praise him maybe when we realise what Jesus has done for us? We write poetry, or we express it in music, or we do creative movement, or worship when there are times of great emotional excitement. We want to get it out. Words in prose are just not enough. And yes there will also be times to be sad and to sing sad songs but far and above all of the sad songs, there is the truth that God's salvation puts a song in our hearts. When it dawned on the Israelites that God had saved them, they sang. When it dawns on you then, what Jesus has done for you on the cross, then you can sing His praises. We too can sing every day to God. We can sing to him every week, to adore him through the worship together with God's people, as we serve together. But it's God's salvation that puts a song in our hearts.


And you might say, “Well why should we sing?” Well, the first thing I want us to see from this passage is some reasons to sing to the Lord. Why sing to the Lord? Remember that these people that were singing are the same people that just the evening before had thought that they would die in the desert. They were trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh's huge army. These runaway slaves had run after the ten plagues had happened. Now just 12 hours earlier they had faced death or perhaps re-enslavement again. Now that they had walked through the Red Sea, as on dry land, and they had seen Pharaoh's army drown in a flood of water. Now they had reason to sing to the Lord because God had been exalted in their eyes. Like a wave rising above the rest of the waves. Like those mega waves off the coast of Portugal, they saw the magnificence and the power of God. God is the hero of this whole drama because God acts, and God works in time and space to save sinful human beings. You and I can then do no other than to sing his praises.


When we as Christians grasp the incredible salvation of Jesus Christ, when we understand what Jesus went through on the cross for us and how great is His the salvation. Then we can be filled by God's Holy Spirit with great excitement and emotion, where we speak to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We overflow, not in drunken pub songs, but songs of adoration of an awesome and wonderful God. The same God who so graphically saved the Israelites at the Red Sea is the same God who parts the sea of sin and the sea of death for us to cross over to eternal life. He is the way of salvation. Salvation is through his death on the cross. Eternal life with Jesus Christ as Lord is the promised land that we are entering. Eternal life goes on as we die and go to be with Jesus. As we close our eyes here and open them in his presence. These are reasons to sing to the Lord.


This song in this passage have two parts if you analyze them. In verses 1-12, we see God's past salvation. Then from verse 13 -18, we read about God's future salvation into the promised land and all because of God's unfailing love. Another reason to sing to the Lord is that there are more victories to come. There are more long marches through valleys and over mountain tops ahead. There are many battles that we will go through as Christians. But Heaven is a certainty as God reigns forever and ever. As Jesus said, our names are written in the lamb's book of life. That's why we can celebrate. That's why we can be fearless even as Revelation 15 tells us of God's victorious people standing in Heaven with harps and other musical instruments to sing. Notice what it says, we will sing both the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. The song of the Lamb is "great and marvellous are your deeds, O Lord God Almighty." Isn't that wonderful? God works out our past salvation and our future salvation, for His glory and His praise. So now we can praise him. Those are just some of the reasons to sing to the Lord.


But if we are to sing to the Lord, notice secondly, you might say, ‘Well what do we sing?’ Let's look then at the content of our songs. Notice that our songs are to exalt the Lord alone. Today most songs are love songs to lovers, but God says exalt the Lord alone. Notice that the people didn't exalt Moses, they didn't praise Miriam, they didn't sing about any human beings. Lkewise, we must worship Jesus Christ who is God because God's salvation puts songs in our hearts. You don't have to worship a pastor or idolize him. And be careful of any of those famous pastors. They often fall and that is a great danger. Some of the things that some of them are teaching are false. They are false teachers. Don't exalt a human leader. Don't worship the worship team and come only when certain worship teams are leading. Worship and adore Jesus Christ alone. And worship then is due to God alone.


Interestingly, we as a family were greatly encouraged by a paraphrase of Exodus 15:2. When we were going through a very hard time as a family we were driving along one day many years ago, when the children were small. Marianna was trying to read a children's Bible to them and they were screaming in the back seat. And I had tears running down my face and it was just too much at that particular time. Then there was this verse 2 that we read together and it's something that we appropriated. We sing it at high times, at family times, at our day of delight meal. We sing it at holiday times when we go away. And we've sung it many a time through a veil of tears. And we've sung it at bedtime to the children. It's the song: “The Lord is my strength. The Lord is my song. I'll praise my God all the day long.” And we repeat that of course many times to encourage ourselves to sing to the Lord. We all need to sing to God. That was our little attempt with little children to put into words our gratitude to God for his goodness and so the content of our songs is to exalt God alone.


The joy of Christ in ordinary times and in extraordinary times has created the Christian hymns and the Christian songs that we sing. Many years ago Martin Rinkart was a pastor, shepherding his church through a hundred years of war in Europe. In one year he buried more than a thousand of his church members. But during that same year, he wrote the great hymn that we often sing now: ‘Now thank we all our God.’ And we remember God. We remember how Jesus has enabled us to praise and thank God. Also remember the Pietists from which the Baptist came. They, as a group in Europe, when there was much persecution of Christians, wrote over 200 000 hymns and songs to the praise of God. Think of John and Charles Wesley singing all their hymns. Charles Wesley wrote a hymn every week to go with his sermon. Today many Christians rap to God, sing to God, write poetry to God, write love letters, they do all sorts of things to praise God.


The content of our songs needs to be balanced and Biblical. It needs to retain the thinking that learns from God, the God of our fathers, and uses both the music of yesterday and the music of today, while adding the Biblical lyrics to these old and new songs. We are to write new songs to the Lord because we are to worship him with both old and new. Just as we try in our church to have a balance in every service both old and new songs. We are to sing a new song to the Lord also because the Lord is a warrior. We are told He fights for us. He is a God who saves us even today in our present context. For all the peace talks in the world, the sadness is that there is going to be no real peace until Jesus Christ, the King of kings comes back on the clouds for us and then forever, in a new Heaven and a new earth, when we will rule with him and be with him. That's what Revelation 19 foretells. That's when peace comes. But until then our songs should reflect the glory of God, exalt his name, be balanced biblically, and teach others about what God has done.


Notice the song that Moses led the people in singing. It was a song that taught of all God's goodness. We are to remind people of what God has done. And so we must explain and give a picture of salvation. And in one sense the book of Exodus is a picture of what Jesus has done, that he's led us out of sin into the promised land of new life, which is a resurrection life ultimately with him. That is to be the content of our songs.


If there is a reason to sing and we have seen the content of our songs, then what is the place of singing in worship? Why do we not just sing in the shower like some of us are prone to do? Well simply because God is a creative God. He has made all the beauty of his creation and he has made you in his image to be creative. And he has made you in such a way that you can represent his glory in different ways.


We have different abilities, each one of us, to worship him. Maybe you're good at writing poetry as you learned at school or university. Maybe you can put music together and notes in a way that makes sense to us and doesn't sound discordant. Maybe you can produce dramas, or act, or make art, or do dramatic readings. Maybe you can produce movement to song or dance. Maybe you can paint something that's beautiful or make a sculpture. Maybe you have the ability to make films and videos. Maybe you can design TikToks and Instagrams and place those shorts on YouTube. If God has gifted you with some of those talents, then do it to His glory. For wherever there is gratitude for God's salvation there will be emotion, an emotion that simple words and ordinary prose cannot fully express. It's an emotion that takes all the creative arts to convey. And so I want you to reflect on that and convey the glory of God, the salvation of Jesus, in every way possible. Because it is possible to be silent because of sin. But when your sin is put away by Jesus, then now there is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus. You have been set apart for Jesus alone, so sing his praises.


There was an old lady that was challenged by a young man who went to visit her. And he asked this old lady, “Are you certain that you're going to Heaven?” And she replied, “Oh young man, nobody can take me out of the hand of God.” The young man thinking he was clever said, “Well you know, is it not possible for you to slip through the fingers of God?” And she said, “No. No, I can't slip through the fingers of God, Laddie, because I am part of his body. I am a finger of God." And if you know and love Jesus he has grafted you into the body of Christ, into the vine, and you are to bear much fruit. You cannot be lost. You are secure in Christ. So sing of His power to his praise. Sing of your hearts delight in him. Make sure that you share what he has done. You are a member of the body of Christ. And take every opportunity to convey that, like Miriam, in a burst of pure joy in this passage over what God has done. Grab your percussion instruments, grab your tambourine and your drum, and sing. Some people of course don't like the drums in church sometimes, but they are here in the Bible and in many other places there are percussion instruments. In this translation here we have a tambourine of some sort, knocking out the pace in a sense. Beating out the beat for the singing and the dancing of the woman and the men as they rejoiced in God's salvation.


Now there is a danger that we can become critical of an instrument that we don't like, that isn't part of our personal preference, but we must be so careful of allowing our preferences or prejudices to cloud our vision. There's that frightening story of David’s wife, Michal. Michal looked out the window and saw David dancing before the Lord. As the ark of the LORD was going up into Jerusalem. And she looked with contempt, “she didn't like it,” “it wasn't her style,” and the reality is she became not only physically barren but spiritually barren. And we need to remember to not criticize somebody else's preferences or ways of conveying their love for God. If you can rap, rap for God. If you can chat, speak-up for God. If you can sing, sing for God. If you can make a joyful noise, make a joyful noise. But we're all to sing. There was a time when people said, ‘Only people with great voices should sing.’ And it was only the choir, or the solo artist, that used to sing. But the Scriptures say that we are all to praise God and sing his praises. And so the place is for all of us to sing. We are all to enjoy his goodness. In Christ's freedom, we are to worship him in spirit and truth, using all the means at our disposal.


There are many ways to worship because God's salvation puts a song and joy in our hearts. It brings out the creativity in us. And I need to ask you very simply, are you personally saved by Jesus Christ? Are you born again? Are you in a growing personal relationship with Jesus? If you are, sing of it. If you’re not, today, turn to Jesus and cry out to him, ‘Jesus save me. Bring me into your kingdom. Give me a song in my heart,’ and he will do that as you ask him. But if you do know him, I want to challenge you in this Christmas time when you might have more time on your hands again, won't you devote that time to creatively expressing your gratitude to God. Christmas cards, songs, essays, TikToks, blogs. Use something to find a way to convey all of God's goodness to you. If you compose good music I can even maybe help you put it to video and put it on our church website, if it's suitable. Think of ways, just like some of our musicians are doing, think of ways that you can express your gratitude to God in small or big ways. But put it out there. Sing to the glory of God in these days. And may God then bless you as you put him first even in all your creativity.


Let us pray together. “O Lord Jesus thank you so very much for this day. Thank you for a chance to remember your salvation and to re-hear the challenge to convey that salvation in song, and in the arts, in all the various mediums. But guide us, Lord. For some of us watching this, we need to say, “Lord I don't have a song in my heart. Save me, Lord Jesus. Change me. Fill me with yourself. Forgive me my sins I pray and then give me a song in my heart to adore you.” I pray for this. I ask in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.”


But if I can just encourage you: find creative ways to express your gratitude to God in some way or another, to him our great and wonderful Saviour. And then to Him be all the glory and the praise, now and forevermore. Amen.

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