David Zimmer: Hello and welcome to the Sound + Doctrine Podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin. And we are so happy that you’ve joined us…
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: For this episode of Sound + Doctrine.
David Zimmer: We are.
Bob Kauflin: We are… Well, let me tell you the history of this episode. Back in 2021, in season two of the Sound + Doctrine Podcast.
David Zimmer: So many seasons.
Bob Kauflin: There are a lot of seasons. I didn’t know we had done so many seasons. We did an episode called God Encounters. How should we think about experiencing God? And at the end of that, I read it in the notes. We said we’d be following up with another podcast on that topic. And here we are four years later, following up.
David Zimmer: What have we been doing for the last…
Bob Kauflin: I don’t know.
David Zimmer: We’ve been very busy.
Bob Kauflin: Got waylaid along the way. So, yeah, this whole topic. Well, the topic of God’s presence, you see it everywhere.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: And that’s right, because God’s presence is such a significant part of God’s intention for his people. You see it throughout scripture from the very beginning where God puts Adam and Eve in the garden, and in Genesis 3:8 says, “They heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden of the cool of the day.” He created us for fellowship with Him.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: And then I’m just going to do a quick biblical overview of the presence of God. So we see the significance in Scripture. And this is the highest level overview. When God’s people were setting out on the journey in the wilderness, Moses says in Exodus 33:15, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” And I love this. “For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people from every other people on the face of the earth?”
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: There is something about the presence of God that distinguishes who we are. We are God’s, and He dwells in our midst. And then when God was telling the Israelites to build the Tabernacle, in Exodus 25, He says, Verse 8, “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.” So again, God wants to dwell in our midst. Exodus 29:46. “They shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.” So God delivers to indwell. He wants to be with us. And then when Solomon builds the temple first Kings 8:13, he says, “I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.”
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: Again, this idea that God is with us is so much a part of God’s intention in our relationship. But then he says in verse 27, chapter 8, 1st Kings. “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven in the highest. Heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built.” So he’s given an aware. He’s giving voice to the fact that God doesn’t really dwell in one place. He’s everywhere. He’s omnipresent. But then this is just so wonderful. And you get into the New Testament. Matthew 1:23 says, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And they shall call His name Immanuel, which means God with us.” And so for 33 years, God in the flesh walked among us. He was truly dwelling with us. Then, as he’s preparing to leave. Matthew 28:20, Jesus prepared to ascend to heaven. He gives the great commission to His disciples and then says, “and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.” So it’s not like, okay, see ya. I’ve been here. I know. We’ve kind of hung out and everything. No, I will be with you to the very end of the age. And then we have in Hebrews 13:5, the writer quotes Moses’ declaration to Joshua from Deuteronomy 31:6, and says, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” So God is with His people. We have the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, where God dwells in us, He is with us. And then the end of it all. What it’s all headed towards Revelation 21:3-4, “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.” It’s so great. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither there shall be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: So just with that very cursory overview, it’s obvious that God’s presence among His people is a big deal.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: God wants to be with us, but you hear that phrase. We hear that phrase, God’s presence just thrown away, thrown around in a way that can be confusing.
David Zimmer: Yeah, definitely.
Bob Kauflin: We’re not sure what it means. I mean, I’ve heard… Well, we’ll talk about it. But people talk about God’s presence as though it’s this thing we can just kind of make happen and predict, and it’s just not quite the way scripture talks about it.
David Zimmer: Yeah, and I mean, you have been leading worship and thinking theologically about corporate worship for a really, really long time.
Bob Kauflin: Centuries.
David Zimmer: And this idea of, oh, we just long for God’s presence to be in our midst.
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: I mean, this has been around your whole time in ministry.
Bob Kauflin: Well, yeah, I came to the Lord in 1972, and that was in the Jesus movement.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: And it was very much a thing. I mean, things were happening back in the ’70s in the States that you just couldn’t explain. And there was an excitement, there was a zeal, there was an expectation that, wow, God is really with us. I mean, that’s what you wanted to say. And then sometimes you wonder, was that God? Was that God?
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: I mean, and it was pervasive.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: It wasn’t even just in the church meeting, it was outside. Yeah, it was almost palpable. But then it wasn’t. And then what do you do with that?
David Zimmer: Right, and so I think that’s… And we’re gonna dive all into this, but that’s where it feels like, well, we have to try to manufacture it to get back to where it was. The other reaction you have is people going completely away, swinging completely away from that. I was like, well, you can’t define that that was God’s presence, so let’s never talk about it.
Bob Kauflin: Yes. Right.
David Zimmer: Let’s never talk about God’s presence.
Bob Kauflin: So what we’ve entitled this episode is Manufacturing, Marketing, and Minimizing God’s Presence. So three unhelpful ways to approach God’s presence. And then we’re gonna, at the end, suggest ways to think about it. And this might be two podcasts, I’m not sure.
David Zimmer: We’ll see how much we talk.
Bob Kauflin: We’ll find out as we go. But I did wanna start, I forgot to do this. I did wanna mention before we dive in, just the importance God puts on our response to his presence. Psalm 105, excuse me, says, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord. Call upon His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him. Sing praises to Him. Tell of all his wondrous works. Glory in His holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His presence continually.” Yeah. So there it is. There’s a command. Seek His presence continually. So we wanna begin, the last point really has to do with that. Don’t minimize His presence. But we wanna begin with talking about how we can seek His presence in unbiblical ways. Two ways we did it. So the first is we aren’t supposed to manufacture God’s presence. Right. And we can’t manufacture God’s presence. I did a little Googling for this episode and found one video that said, Use intense worship and prayers to bring down God’s presence. Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t think we can make that promise. Intense, just worship and prayers won’t do it. But if they’re intense, they will do it.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: And I’ve seen advertisements for churches looking for music leaders and we need a worship leader who will be able to bring us into the presence of God. Well, we’ll talk about that. So let’s see. Of course, God is omnipresent. He’s everywhere. Psalm 139:7-8. “Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” But I think when we’re talking about God’s presence, we mean something different. The times that God makes His presence more clear, more tangible, like in the ’70s or the mid ’90s, the Toronto Blessing, or at different times. We experience when our hearts are flooded with peace or when we’re suddenly aware of God’s greatness in the midst of a meeting. It doesn’t have to be in the midst of a meeting. When someone is healed, we think… There’s this, whoa, it’s not just us. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We are just aware God is with us. And we try to… We think we can manufacture that.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: It comes to us when God’s word is being preached and it pierces our hearts. I mean, there have been times… Has this happened to you when you’re listening to the word being preached and it suddenly seems like the preacher just disappears and you are hearing God speak to you.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: There’s this… It grips you.
David Zimmer: And it’s not always that the preacher is a phenomenal preacher.
Bob Kauflin: Right. That’s right.
David Zimmer: It’s the word that’s being preached.
Bob Kauflin: That’s right.
David Zimmer: Yeah. I mean, it’s the same that happens through song lyrics. It’s the same when a friend texts you and you say, wow. You have no idea what’s going on in my life and that text message that you sent me.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, yes.
David Zimmer: God used that thing to… Yeah. It’s a dependent awareness that God is working in our midst. It’s not just us sharing the things that He said. The Holy Spirit is using that.
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: And the same thing could be said 150 times and on the 151st, there’s a reaction, an awareness that, wow, the Lord is using this.
Bob Kauflin: So because we’ve become more aware.
David Zimmer: Because we have become more aware.
Bob Kauflin: I did see an article on just being attentive to the Lord’s presence. I think that’s an important part of it. You can walk outside and look at the trees. If there are trees outside where you are, you can look at the sky, you can look at nature and either just go, oh, well, another day, or you can marvel at the fact that there is a God who knows every molecule that you’re seeing and is holding it all together and just think, wow, His care, His kindness, His sovereignty, His power. Yeah, that’s being attentive. So yeah, we were talking about times when you realize God is here. I remember hearing a message at a conference and at the very end it was as though a pin could drop. You could hear a pin drop. Everybody was so affected by the word that was being preached and the sobriety that brought, the awareness of God that it brought. So yeah, we experience… We’re all thinking, God’s really here now. He was there before. Yes, but now we’re really experiencing it. Good intentions notwithstanding. No one can consistently and meaningfully bring God’s experience presence to a group of people.
Bob Kauflin: No musician, no pastor, no singer, no preacher, no leader, nobody. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. And He functions on his terms, not ours. He distributes gifts as He wills, as He assigns them. He manifests the presence of God as He wills, as He determines. Of course the Spirit uses means. I mean, when God’s word is preached in an engaging, faithful way, Christ exalting way, people will often experience a greater awareness of God’s presence. I never heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach, but I heard people say that when they heard him preached, it was, you just were aware of the presence of God. I imagine that’s what it was like to hear Charles Spurgeon preach. There are some present day preachers, you will often think, yes, God is speaking through them. When we sing biblical truths together, God will make His presence known among us in a tangible way. It’s a rare Christian, I think, who has an experience at some point in singing this awareness of the nearness of God. And it doesn’t have to be just at a conference.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: You know.
David Zimmer: Yeah, right.
Bob Kauflin: It’s not supposed to be just at the conference. When we… We just came back from a conference, Your Gathering & The Gospel in California. And one of the things we want to make clear… We do make clear at the end of all our conferences is we don’t do this conference so that you can just anticipate the next conference.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: This is so that you get to go back now and do the best part, and that is serving your local church.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: That’s where God wants to reveal his presence.
David Zimmer: Yes, the purpose of the conference is to equip you, not impress you.
Bob Kauflin: Well said. But there is that temptation, isn’t there? You get a bunch of people in a room, bigger than your church, professional musicians, and everybody’s singing, it’s amazing, and you think, oh, this is the presence of God.
David Zimmer: This is it, yeah.
Bob Kauflin: But you know God’s just as present in your church. So we can’t manufacture it. The richness of those experiences, though, can tempt us to think that our ultimate goal is helping people experience the presence of God. And I’d say yes and no. If helping people experience the presence of God means doing everything I can to exalt the glory of Jesus in their minds and hearts and wills through biblically informed things like the word of God and the Lord’s Supper and prayer, yes, then yes, we can help them experience the presence of God.
David Zimmer: Right. And I don’t mean to cut you off.
Bob Kauflin: No, cut me off any time.
David Zimmer: I think that’s why, that’s sort of the running joke among us of like, okay, lead us to the throne room.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, yes.
David Zimmer: Because what you’re saying is, that’ll happen a lot during our Worship Matters Intenses. Well, we’ll just eat lunch. We’ll all be tired and dragging. And so the next guy who’s gonna stand up and lead, okay, well, your job is to… But I love how you’re saying it is a yes and no because he’s not doing that. The truth that he’s leading us in has the ability to do that.
Bob Kauflin: That’s right, that’s right. And if my goal is to make people feel something, if the measure of my success is the degree of emotional fervor in the room, then I’ll use whatever means I can to produce that emotional response.
David Zimmer: And we see that all over the place.
Bob Kauflin: It’s such a temptation.
David Zimmer: It’s so easy to do.
Bob Kauflin: We’re asked that question often, different training situations where what if people aren’t responding? Well, there’s a lot of bad answers to that modulate.
David Zimmer: True.
Bob Kauflin: Increase the volume, sing louder.
David Zimmer: Well, and then also the temptation of, oh, just take more time.
Bob Kauflin: Linger.
David Zimmer: You’re just not giving it enough time. Linger. Sit in it for a second.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, think nothing. Just let your thoughts wander aimlessly. That’ll bring the presence of God. The temptation is to think, this is manufacturing the presence of God, my song, my leadership, my voice. I never think that. The songs I picked, or my playing. The chords I’m using, the harmony. I was playing at a conference one time, and a guy turned around and he said, there’s healing in that thing you’re playing. I thought, I don’t think so. I’m just playing chords. That’s all I’m doing.
David Zimmer: Wow.
Bob Kauflin: But in his perspective… This was many years ago. Yeah, it was.
David Zimmer: It’s so tempting, though, for congregations, because they are not thinking necessarily theologically.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, yes.
David Zimmer: When they hear good music versus bad music, or something excellently done versus poorly done, they equate it to, oh, it’s just so much more palatable, tangible with good music, good production, good performance.
Bob Kauflin: Well, it’s just so helpful to remember the spirit can use skill. The spirit can use creative harmonies. The spirit can use beautiful voices. The spirit can use a tight beat, rhythm section, to communicate God’s glory, God’s presence. He doesn’t need them.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: He just doesn’t need them. And so when we become confident in them, not only dependent, but confident in them, yeah, if I just do this, I know the spirit’s showing up. I just know. Yeah, then we’ve lost our way.
David Zimmer: Totally.
Bob Kauflin: Years ago, I was… This was 2009, John Piper was speaking at one of the Worship God conferences. And I remember just encouraging him that the conference was going great, but now it’s going to be even better because he was speaking in inimitable John Piper fashion. He said something like, oh, oh, great, John Piper’s here. Oh, the spirit’s going to show up. God’s going to show up. Because I’m here it’s like, I was just trying to encourage you. I was just trying to encourage you, John. And to be clear, God did show up. I mean, people referenced that conference to this day and say how meaningful it was to them. And we were greatly encouraged. But John’s point is true, that no individual can guarantee the presence of God, and he doesn’t intend for us to manufacture it. Not through smoke machines, not through dark rooms, not through special lighting. Those do not bring the presence of God. And that’s just a number of… I’m sure there are more things I could say about that, but maybe it’s good that we stop there. We cannot manufacture the presence of God. And if you’re a part of a church now where you sense that’s happening, I would talk to the leaders. I would say, ask questions. How am I to think about this? Maybe they’ve said something that implies we’re making the presence of God happen. We can’t do that. So that’s the first thing. Second, not only we can’t manufacture God’s presence, we can’t market God’s presence.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: At least we aren’t supposed to. Again, in my research that I did for this, I came across a few videos that I wanted to read the titles of. The single fastest way into the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Bob Kauflin: I don’t know if we’re to distinguish between like the slowest, the medium range, the fastest way to the presence of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think we can even control that. “Five keys to activate the manifest presence of God in your life.: Five keys. I mean, they may be, and I think this, I’m not sure if this one did that or not, but it may be pray, study God’s word, serve other people. If that’s what you’re talking about, great. I’m not sure that’s what they’re talking about. And then this is the one I really love, “How to feel God’s presence in eight minutes and never doubt again.” Right there. I want you to watch that one. That’s marketing God’s presence. It’s watch me talk about this. I earn money as you’re doing it because I’m going to… I promise you something. I promise that by doing this thing that I tell you to do, you’re going to experience God’s presence. That’s marketing God’s presence. It’s promoting my ministry, my song. This song will get you into God’s presence. My book, my event, my concert, my gathering, on the basis of how consistently people experience God’s presence as a result of buying those things or coming to those things. I remember I once received a promo from Christian artist who said his ministry goal was to take people into the presence of Jesus Christ where they are forever changed by his amazing love. Now, I think I know what they mean. It’s just not a great way to phrase it.
Bob Kauflin: I can’t take people into the presence of Christ. I can’t take people into the presence of God. I can proclaim the gospel that assures them that we have been brought near to the Father through the finished work of Christ. Hebrews 10:19, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near. That’s the exhortation.” Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. There is just bucket upon bucket of encouragement, of exhortation to draw near. You can draw near now. Why? Because you’ve got someone singing a certain song in a certain voice with certain chords? Nope, because Jesus has done it. It’s just…
David Zimmer: Well, He’s done all the… He has done all the work. That’s the beauty about that passage is that we wouldn’t draw near. We couldn’t draw near. And that the Spirit is the one who does that. The Spirit is the one who draws us.
Bob Kauflin: Yes. So, I leave it to the Holy Spirit, we leave it to the Holy Spirit to apply that to people’s hearts. We can’t make it happen. I mean, I’ve been invited to attend conferences, not lead at them, thankfully, download songs, attend concerts, buy books, and listen to preachers who all claim they will bring me into God’s presence for a price. And that’s what marketing God’s presence is. We cannot buy the presence of God. We cannot sell the presence of God. In Acts 8, Simon the magician realized that when he saw the disciples lay their hands on people with dramatic effect, he offered them cash. He said, hey, give me that power, I want to do that. Peter rebuked him. He said, that is so wrong. God’s power, like God’s presence, it can’t be bought or sold. He doesn’t call us so much to be facilitators of His glory as faithful to the gospel.
Bob Kauflin: So it’s such a pressure. And again, we often receive this question, something’s not happening here. I’m leading. I’m doing all the stuff. I’m taking the steps. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. And nothing’s happening. The temptation is to, especially after you leave a conference, the temptation is to create this environment of excitement, this fervor, this passion. God’s here, God’s here. When really we want to create an environment where people can respond to the true God through the gospel in the power of the Spirit. They have to see what God has done in Jesus Christ. That’s what will move them. That’s what the Holy Spirit uses often to make us aware of His presence.
David Zimmer: Right.
Bob Kauflin: Now, I know some people have asked me and probably you, doesn’t Sovereign Grace Music charge for their recordings of their events? Aren’t you being hypocritical? And I appreciate that question. Yes, we do charge for things. Not… I mean, only as often as we have to. We give away all our charts for free. We give away all our resources for free. And others do that, and we thank God for that. And it’s not wrong to charge for things. But what we charge for is costs related to ministry, things like production costs, salaries, resources, because we are committed to getting those things out, but we’re not promising to bring people into the presence of God. God’s got to do that. Now, when we put on a conference, three things that we want to happen. We want people to be encouraged, we want them to be equipped, and we want them to encounter God. We’ll do our best to… Well, all three, really. I mean, we give away stuff, we tell them… Thank them for coming. We do a lot to encourage them. We try to equip them through breakouts and through the messages and through teachings. We try to equip them, and we’re always thinking application. This is we prepare for Worship God26, July 28th through 31st in Louisville, Kentucky. Just thought I’d throw that in there. And then we pray that people will encounter the Lord. But we don’t design things so that it’s all aimed at that, and we don’t sell that. You come and you’ll experience the presence of God like you’ve never experienced before. No, that’s… We leave that up to the Lord to do.
David Zimmer: In many ways, wouldn’t you say that the conference is designed to have the elements of our Sunday gatherings?
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: I mean, so the musicians are people that we use in our church. The messages are long enough that there’s time to exposit and to preach.
Bob Kauflin: And as much as possible, we prefer text-driven messages, expositional messages, messages that are telling us what God has said in the way He has said it.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: Because I think so often we go to Scripture to find what we want to find.
David Zimmer: Yes.
Bob Kauflin: A verse here, a verse there, a passage there. No, we want to hear what God has said about these things.
David Zimmer: But I do appreciate you bringing that up. I think there must be a sensitivity to it. We need to have a sensitivity to the fact that this is God’s Word.
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: And these are His truths.
Bob Kauflin: Well, that’s what everything subsists under.
David Zimmer: Yes. And this is a natural outflowing of our hearts. It’s not necessarily a gig. It’s not necessarily a… It should never be a platform for prestige and…
Bob Kauflin: Absolutely.
David Zimmer: Attention. We should be laying our lives down.
Bob Kauflin: That’s what we’re doing.
David Zimmer: These are the means, but.
Bob Kauflin: That’s what we’re seeking to do. So those are the first two points, and it looks like this is going to be three podcasts, two podcasts.
David Zimmer: Hopefully two.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, not three. We can’t manufacture God’s presence. We aren’t meant to market it. But it is a continual cause of wonder and amazement that the Creator of the universe wants to dwell among those He created.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: God’s presence is a distinguishing mark of His people. So we don’t want to minimize it.
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: And the question we want to answer, we’ll start here, but I think we’ll finish in the next podcast, does it make any difference? Really, does it make any difference that God really is with us?
David Zimmer: Yeah.
Bob Kauflin: I mean, I know there are churches that meet week after week after week and expect nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, as though it was just a bunch of people getting together and we’re going to read the Bible, we’re going to sing, we’re going to pray. I know growing up for me, I grew up Catholic, and there was always the emphasis on the Eucharist, but we were pretty much going through motions, and I didn’t have a sense that there was something happening. I think there was an effort to try and make God’s presence palpable through physical means, whether that be the design of the building or vestments that were worn, things like that. What about your experience?
David Zimmer: Well, I was just going to say, I think… I mean, different from yours, but there’s something interesting about the fact that they were at least attempting to, well, we want to show His presence here. I’m sure His presence here.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, there was, yes.
David Zimmer: But I think there can be a swing to, especially if you grew up, like, reformed, there can be a swing from, oh, well, obviously we’re not that.
0:31:60.0 Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: We’re not chasing that emotionalism.
Bob Kauflin: Yes, yes.
David Zimmer: So let’s never talk about God’s presence. He’s here. He’s omnipresent.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah.
David Zimmer: But we don’t need to talk. We don’t need to anticipate that He’s going to potentially do something. We’re just going to assume the work that He does is through prayer, through preaching the word, through meeting and then leaving. And again, not minimizing those things. Obviously, that’s where it’s happening. But a minimization of the fact that, do you know that He’s here?
Bob Kauflin: Yes.
David Zimmer: Do you have an awareness that He’s here? You know, I came across this Richard Baxter quote, “God’s presence makes a crowd a church.”
Bob Kauflin: That’s great.
David Zimmer: Sometimes it feels like our Sunday gatherings are a crowd. Are they the church that’s indwelt by God Himself, by the Holy spirit?
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, and it’s remarkable. I mean, just hear you talk about it. I’m just affected again to think that the God who created everything that exists desires to dwell in our midst as we gather. Of course, all throughout life, all of life, does that make any difference to how we think? So let’s end here. Whether you’re someone… We know people listen to the podcast who aren’t connected to leading or preparing for their meeting at all, the Sunday gathering, that you’re just, you’re a believer in Christ. So we want to ask you, does it make any difference to you that you’re going to meeting this Sunday where God Himself will be present among you and is promised to be there? Does that change anything? If you’re those who prepare you pick the songs, you lead the liturgy, you’re preaching maybe, does it make any difference to you that God is going to be with you as you’re preparing that? That He’s with you in the preparation, that He’s going to be with you as you do those things. And for those who lead, does it make any difference that God’s going to be with you? Or are you just trying to get through the meeting without any train wrecks? Make sure there are no gaps. Everything’s got to be seamless. Make sure things flow. Is that how we’re thinking about it? I think that’d be minimizing God’s presence. And so we’re going to devote the whole next episode to that. And if you’ve listened to this one, we strongly encourage you to listen to the next one because in that one, we’re going to talk about ways to not minimize God’s presence.
David Zimmer: Wonderful.
Bob Kauflin: But in this…
David Zimmer: I like the cliffhanger.
Bob Kauflin: Yeah, I know, I know. We’re leaving. Duh, duh. So anyway, thank you for joining us. We so appreciate. And if you have any questions about what we’re talking about, send an email to soundplusdoctrine@sovereigngrace.com. Spell out the word “plus”. And we’d love to hear from you. But thank you for being with us.
David Zimmer: And we’ll see you at the next episode.
Bob Kauflin: We will.
David Zimmer: Thanks.
