Welcome back to Aspastor John. This summer Pastor John is out of the studio preaching in Belfast in Scotland before returning to the States for a 40-day writing leave to finish up a book on Providence on the sovereignty of God a book he started last summer and hopes to finish this summer I cannot wait to see it and all of it the travel the book writing in this very podcast is all made possible by you we are supported by the prayers and the funding of God's people so thank you for generously

investing in this important and eternal work so with Pastor John busy we're diving into our archive of 1500 episodes and this summer we're pulling out some of your favorites about once every 50 episodes we release one that touches a nerve and touches the 300,000 play mark these are the elite episodes in our six and a half year history we only have about 30 of them and here's one of them

well it's Sunday night after a day of worship with the people of God and musical worship is such an important part of our embodied life together but I don't think we've ever looked at lyrics of a contemporary worship song in a question in this podcast but we do today

hello Pastor John my name is Samuel a young minister through music my church's worship team struggles with a new worship song what a beautiful name a widely acclaimed song because of its musical orchestration and because of its reflection on God's glory in the kingship of Christ however my worship team finds the lyrics of the second verse questionable you didn't want heaven without us so Jesus you brought heaven down our question is the saying you didn't want heaven without us

imply a man-centered gospel the statement isn't necessarily false but the implications could be skewed that's our fear additionally the word so is used afterwards implying that the following statement of bringing heaven down was founded upon the first statement of not wanting heaven without us much like the word therefore so implies heaven was brought down in response to God not wanting heaven without us

Pastor John do you believe these lyrics are biblically valid so let me start broad and then get specific because I love I love the issue I love the concern my the first thing I want to do his praise God for a worship team that is struggling with issues of truth and song lyrics this is really good news

it's a good sign and I hope all worship leaders who hear this will be encouraged to do the same one of the reasons this is really good news and that it really matters is that a congregation learns its theology and and takes it down into the crevices of their soul by songs that they sing not just by the preaching they hear

I think historically it's the himnady of the church that has alongside preaching been one of the most powerful means by which a church is taught I would guess that in some churches the songs may be even more decisive in the way truth is embraced because the preaching may be so thin when it comes to doctrinal teaching

of course the songs may be very thin as well you can you can sing very thin songs that just repeat even great sentences like his name is great that's true but you don't ever say why it's great or how the cross grounds it's greatness so I say amen to the struggle and command every worship team to be vigilant over the lyrics of what their people are singing that's the first thing second thing I would say

is that the last 30 years maybe 40 now have been an incredibly fruitful time for writing of new lyrics and new music for the church this is a great thing this is a great sign I think of life the psalmist says five times sing to the Lord a new song

33-3-96-1-98-1-144-9-149-1 sing to the Lord a new song and Jesus said to balance things every scribe could say every worship leader who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old

Matthew 1352 what this means is that given the hundreds and hundreds of worthy substantial rich deep old hymns that speak nourishing doctrinal truth and given the many many many new songs of the last 30 years that are solid and Christ exalting

and gospel rich and God centered there is no reason for any church to sing songs that are misleading or even questionable that's the second thing I need to say it's it's not as though any worship team who has access to the internet is back into a corner not knowing what to sing and having to sing something questionable

because there's hundreds of glorious rich beautiful contemporary and old songs so my main response to Samuel is find the old and the new that are rock solid beautiful and use them you are teachers in the church

let this sink in James says let not many of you become worship leaders because your teachers let not many of you become worship leaders because you are teachers and teachers will be judged more strictly I mean right after the pastor come the worship leaders who are choosing what teaching is going to happen while people are singing their hearts out and absorbing all this truth or non-truth that these people have put in front of them

now to the specific lyrics Samuel is concerned about that there there's a thread of teaching in some songs today that seems to me to lack the gravity of God's passion for the glory of God above all things

let's say that again there's a thread of teaching in some songs today that seems to me to lack the gravity of God's passion for his glory above all else my sense is that until a congregation is devastated by the outrage and the horror of our sin as demeaning and belittling to the glory of God

accompanied by a majestic vision of God's glory and justice and holiness and wrath until those two realities are taught and felt deep down the reality of grace and mercy

will not be rightly known and cherished by a congregation which really matters to me then how we sing about grace seems to me that we tend to assume that at least there's a there's a strain or a thread of songs that tend to assume that people sorrows and shame and difficulties in life is enough of a backdrop

a bad backdrop to make the mysteries of the glory of the gospel known over against them I don't think so I don't think the sorrows and the shame that people bring without being taught with their real condition is is enough to help them understand grace in fact I think people are going to distort grace if it's not taught against the backdrop of the biblical bad news rather than the bad news

that people bring which they think they understand to be the bad news when it's not the bad news the New Testament assumes that people need to be taught what their real terrible condition is under the power of sin before grace can really be the God exalting reality that it is and I see that in Ephesians 2 1 to 10 and Ephesians 1 4 to 6 for example

so I think Samuel is right that the question is not whether a statement in a song is literally true by itself but what effect what effect it has on the people that is how does it fit into their view of God

...