The theme of this conference is “Sing! The Songs of the Bible.” And the sentences on the website that explain where we are going state,

Join us to rediscover the power and beauty of the songs of Scripture. From Genesis to Revelation, we will explore how the word of God guides and invigorates our worship as individuals, families, and churches.

Taking all that together, the picture I have in my mind of this conference is of a sword with a very sharp point. Behind that point is a titanium blade with a magnificent golden hilt. The point of the blade is the songs of Scripture. And the unbreakable strength and beauty of the sword is the word of God in its totality. It is the mighty sword of the Spirit. So, the aim of the conference is that this sword, with its focused point on the songs of Scripture, would penetrate through every obstacle, so that the word of God, the Scriptures, would guide and invigorate all our worship.

The way I would like to serve that aim in this message is by drawing out an important implication of the word “invigorate.” The aim of the conference is that the word of God would guide and invigorate our worship — not just guide it but invigorate it. And the implication I’m going to draw out is this:

• Right emotions toward God are the goal of right thinking about God.
• Right feelings toward God are the goal of right doctrines about God.
• Right affections for God are the goal of true statements about God.

This implies that the inspired, infallible word of God exists for the sake of creating, guiding, and invigorating right emotions toward God. And therefore, the mind that grasps biblical truth exists to serve the heart. Right thinking about God exists for the sake of right feelings for God. Biblical propositions about the glory of God exist to serve biblical passions for the glory of God.

Right Thinking Serves Right Feeling

Even if I were to draw attention to the fact that sometimes right feelings serve right thinking, and wrong feelings serve wrong thinking, which they do — if you truly love God, you will understand your Bible better; and if you truly hate God, you will distort his word almost everywhere — it would not change the fact that when your right feelings help you gain a right interpretation of the Bible, that right interpretation is not an end in itself. It is designed by God to send your affections further up and further in — to God.

So, I am arguing that when it comes to the chief end of man — to glorify God, to magnify the Son of God — there is a real ultimacy in Godward feelings, which Godward thinking does not have. Both are indispensable in our relationship with God. We would not have a Bible if they weren’t. But one of them is more ultimate as the goal of the other. And one of them is less ultimate as the servant of the other. Thinking is the servant; feeling is the goal. Knowing truth is the servant; feeling love is the goal. The lyrics of the Bible are the kindling; affections for God are the fire. Psalm 23 exists so that you will have fearless affections for God in the valley of the shadow of death.

One of the reasons I’m stressing this is so that, as the theme of the conference unfolds, and you are exhorted repeatedly and rightly to build Scripture into your worship, you will not see the singing of Scripture as an end in itself, but as a means to Scripture-formed emotions toward God.

Illustrations of a Pervasive Pattern

How does the Bible teach this? How does the Bible teach us that knowing is the servant of feeling — that biblical doctrine, as we read it or sing it, is designed by God to invigorate Godward emotions? The Bible teaches this by showing this pattern repeatedly.

Great Truth Makes Great Songs

For example, Psalm 16:8–10 says,

I have set the Lord always before me;
     because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
     my flesh also dwells secure.
Because you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
     or let your holy one see corruption.

Here’s the pattern. God has shown me a truth, a great reality: he will be at my right hand and keep me from being shaken. Therefore, built on that knowledge, my heart is glad; my whole being rejoices. Because — now he points to another foundation for his gladness — you will not abandon my soul to Sheol. Godward truth serves Godward emotions. Knowing serves feeling. That’s the pattern.

And you can’t turn it around. You can’t say, “Because my heart is glad, therefore I can build my doctrine on that.” Emotions don’t work that way. That’s not how God designed it. They are the goal, not the servant — the end, not the means.

Psalm 47:1–2 says,

Clap your hands, all peoples!
     Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared,
     a great king over all the earth.

Here is the revelation of a great truth, a great reality — something for the mind to know: the Lord is a great king over all the earth. And what is God’s purpose in revealing this truth to our minds? Therefore, “shout to God with loud songs of joy!” The doctrine serves the delight, not the other way around. That’s the pattern.

Psalm 95:2–3 says,

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
     let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
     and a great King above all gods.

Why feel thankfulness? Why make a joyful noise with songs of praise? Because “the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” We feel the truth because we know the truth. We don’t know the truth because we feel the truth. God designed the mind and the truth it knows to be the servant of the heart and the joy it feels.

Stanzas of a Godward Heart

There are four stanzas in Psalm 100. The first and the third are feeling stanzas. The second and the fourth are knowing stanzas. The first and the third are stanzas of delight, and the second and the fourth are stanzas of doctrine.

1. Feeling stanza:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
     Serve the Lord with gladness!
     Come into his presence with singing! (Psalm 100:1–2)

2. Knowing stanza:

Know that the Lord, he is God!
     It is he who made us, and we are his;
     we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3)

3. Feeling stanza:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
     and his courts with praise!
     Give thanks to him; bless his name! (Psalm 100:4)

4. Knowing stanza:

For the Lord is good;
     his steadfast love endures forever,
     and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100:5)

Feel because you know. Delight on the basis of doctrine. This is not an accident or a coincidence. This is God’s design, God’s plan. Truth serves emotion. Thinking serves feeling. Doctrine serves delight. The mind serves the heart.

Reviled and Rejoicing

Turning to the New Testament, let’s look first to Jesus.

Matthew 5:11–12 says,

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

How can we rejoice and be glad when persecuted and slandered? Because we know something. We know that our reward is great in heaven. Is this not amazing? Jesus actually believes that if we know this truth as we ought to know it, we will experience radically counterintuitive emotions — namely, joy in the face of slander. Knowing with our mind the truth of God’s promise produces feeling in our heart at man’s persecution. Knowing serves feeling.

Luke 10:19–20 says,

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

He is saying, “Here is a truth, a reality, for your mind to grasp and know, my dear disciples: your names are written in heaven. Indeed, they were written there before the foundation of the world, never to be erased. You are permanent citizens of my heavenly kingdom.” Therefore, my brothers, be invigorated in your heart to rejoice in this. Let this good news make you glad. Let this doctrine give you delight. Use your knowing faculty to fight for joy.

Pain in Life, Joy in the Heart

Here are two more biblical illustrations of this pattern — one from Paul and one from James.

Romans 5:3–5 says,

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Rejoice by knowing. That is, rejoice because you know. You know that suffering produces endurance and character and hope and a shame-free eternity. You know this, Christian. So, rejoice in your suffering. God’s purpose is that the mind would embrace his promise so that the heart would rejoice in pain. The mind serves the heart. The truth serves the joy.

Finally, James 1:2–3 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.

You know God’s purpose in the testing of your faith. Therefore, rejoice when your faith is tested. Your mind sees glory in the truth, so that your heart will savor it in the trial.

“God designed the mind and the truth it knows to be the servant of the heart and the joy it feels.”

The aim of the conference is that the word of God would guide and invigorate our worship. And the implication I am drawing out is this: Right emotions toward God are the goal of right thinking about God. There is a real ultimacy in Godward feelings, which Godward thinking does not have. Both are indispensable. But one of them is more ultimate as the goal of the other. And one of them is less ultimate as the servant of the other. Thinking is the servant; feeling is the goal. Doctrine is the servant; delight is the goal. That’s what we have seen in the pattern of Scripture that runs from cover to cover.

Spontaneity of Pure Delight

My remaining question is this: Why did God design things this way — so that the mind serves the heart and Godward feeling is more ultimate than Godward thinking?

One way to move toward an answer to that question is to think about artificial intelligence (AI). One definition of AI is “technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity, and autonomy.” What is strikingly missing from that list is human emotions. Why is it that we hear nothing about Artificial Emotion (AE)?

Here’s my answer. Intelligence — the use of the mind in thinking, reasoning, and knowing — exists primarily as a means to an end. Intelligence gathers data from the five senses, analyzes it, organizes it, draws conclusions from it, and then puts it to some use. The use might be to say something or do some task or, in the case of real humans, feel something. Intelligence by itself is pragmatic. So, we don’t take offense when a machine does the type of thinking that intelligence does. The machine got the facts, the logic, and the conclusion right, and it’s useful.

But as soon as you put the word artificial with emotion (AE), everything in us recoils. We have experience of artificial emotion. And nobody likes it. If a young lady comes home from her first date with a guy and says to her roommate, “He has great knowledge of facts. Impeccable logic. All the right conclusions. But his emotions are all artificial. It all feels fake.” She’s fine with his computer-like brain. That might be useful. She’s not fine with his computer-like heart.

The difference is that God has designed the human heart and its emotional life not to be pragmatic. That is, when our emotions come into being authentically, they’re not a means to an end. What marks an emotion as artificial is that it looks like it’s trying to sell you something. Artificial emotions are manipulative. They’re not spontaneously an end in themselves. They want to get something or make something happen.

If you get a gift that you really wanted for years, thankfulness rises up spontaneously in your heart. It might burst out in some words of gratitude or spill over in some other way. But there is one thing it’s not. It’s not calculating. It’s not pragmatic. It’s not thinking, “Well, if I feel this thankfulness strong enough, then they might give me some more.” That’s not thankfulness. That’s fake. That’s AE. We all know it’s fake because genuine emotions are not pragmatic. They’re not manipulative. They’re not a means to an end. They are genuine ends.

Wonder Is Our Proper Tribute

This means that, in God’s design, human emotion is perfectly suited as the heart of why God created the universe — namely, worship. Because worship is not pragmatic. It is not a means to an end. It is the point at which God is rightly shown to be the great, beautiful, infinitely valuable God that he is. And we all know intuitively that beauty and greatness and worth are not adequately glorified by being accurately described.

If you stand before Mount Elbert in Colorado, and your brain goes to work with your pad of paper, and you say, “14,439 feet tall, highest peak in the Rockies, snow-covered eight months of the year,” and you hold up your pad and say, “My tribute,” you’re not a worshiper. You’re a computer. Only when those “doctrines” written on that piece of paper produce the heartfelt delight of awe and wonder and amazement do you become a worshiper, and the mountain receives its proper tribute. Doctrine is the servant. Delight is the goal.

The aim of the conference is that the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, would pierce through every obstacle and become the invigorating power of all our worship. No biblical truth, no biblical affections. No biblical propositions, no biblical passions. No biblical doctrine, no biblical delight. But where the word of God is sung — full of biblical truth, full of biblical propositions, full of biblical doctrine — the Son of God will be savored as an infinitely glorious end in himself.