David Zimmer: Welcome back to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Devon Kauflin: And I’m Devon Kauflin.
DZ: And we have a special guest.
Bob Kauflin: Hey, wait a minute.
[laughter]
DK: Good to have you here today.
BK: Thanks.
DZ: We didn’t even say his name.
BK: It’s Bob Kauflin.
DK: Thanks for introducing yourself.
BK: He would not be alive without me. I just want you to know that.
DZ: Don’t wanna go into any of that?
BK: Nope. Okay.
DZ: We are on part two of the most important podcast we’ve ever done to date.
DK: The biggest, maybe not the most important, but certainly the biggest.
DZ: Yeah, definitely the biggest.
BK: We left people hanging last time.
DZ: We did. How does it feel?
BK: Can we do a pre-save for this or anything? Can you do that?
DZ: No, we don’t have that access.
DK: All right. So here we are. Should we… Well, first, this podcast will blow your mind.
BK: It will blow your mind.
DZ: Yep.
BK: First we should reiterate the three we covered last time.
DZ: Exactly.
BK: And you should really…
DK: The three, what? I don’t even think we’ve said. Have we even said?
DZ: No.
BK: Oh, these are the seven biggest mistakes you can make as a worship leader part two.
DK: Oh. Wow.
DK: Part two? Wow.
BK: Part two. Yeah. They were so big. We couldn’t even get through them in one podcast. We had to take two.
DK: Either that or we are so verbose…
DZ: Well we’re long-winded.
[laughter]
BK: Well, that is possible.
DZ: We’re not efficient.
BK: Alright. So the first was not going to the Bible first, and if you haven’t listened to that podcast you should just go back and listen to that.
DK: Number two.
BK: Number two is making it about you rather than Jesus. Number three making it about you rather than the church.
DZ: Mm-hmm.
BK: Ready for number four?
DZ: We are.
DK: Now I’m ready.
DZ: Okay. That’s ready.
BK: Giving more thought and significance to secondary concerns than primary ones, kind of flows from the first three. We talked about the three important things being God’s word, Jesus and the church. And then there are all these other things that we make the most important thing.
DZ: Right.
BK: And I’ve seen this kind of develop over the last 45 years. How, it used to be just about, wow there’s this wonderful thing happening that God’s doing, where we’re singing and there’s life, there’s energy, there’s joy there’s an expectation. And then it became this thing, this industry, I never forget at a GMA. I think I’ve only been to two [chuckle]] event.
DK: It’s hard to forget when you’ve only been two.
BK: Yeah. It is Gospel Music Association and Louie Giglio was speaking and he said, “never forget.” So this is to people who are in the worship music industry, gospel music industry said, “Never forget in the middle of the word industry is the word dust.” That’s what we’re giving ourselves to. If that’s the ultimate thing, that’s what’s gonna happen to it. Just thought that was so profound. So helpful.
DZ: It’s really good. I thought you were gonna say us.
[laughter]
BK: Well, that could be true.
[laughter]
DZ: I didn’t know where that was going.
BK: That could be true as well in the middle of industry.
DK: That would be a big mistake.
DZ: That would be.
BK: That’d be another big mistake.
DZ: That’d be eight reasons.
BK: That’s not on the list. Seven, keep it to seven.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Seven perfect numbers.
DK: There’s only seven. It’s comprehensive. We’ve covered them all.
[laughter]
BK: So secondary concerns and not all of these are important. It’s just they become the thing we give our time and thought.
DZ: Right.
BK: And affection to we form Facebook groups around them. We… We make, we give this little bit amount of time to the first, the primary things and then a lot of time to the secondary things. So that those become what we think about, those become the measures the metrics of whether or not the meeting has been successful.
DZ: Right.
DK: And I think it’s important to note, so God purpose is to build his church and Satan purposes to try to stand against it…
BK: Yes yes.
DK: And afford it. And Satan’s means of doing that. They don’t come to us with signs saying, “this is Satan’s device.”
BK: Yes, yes.
DK: “For misdirecting the church.”
BK: Pitch-fork there.
DZ: Yeah.
DK: Right.
DZ: Fire…
DK: There with horns. It doesn’t come like that, doesn’t come like overtly evil, Satan uses good things.
BK: Yes.
DK: And things that are meant for our good.
BK: Yes.
DK: That God means for our good and in a sense subverts the importance of those things.
BK: Yes.
DK: And so then we end up focusing on things that are secondary.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Yes.
DK: More than things that are primary and those things become our gods.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Right. Yeah.
DK: And that’s… And so I think as we’re having this conversation, I think it’s just being aware that like, oh no, that’s normally what happens. And you look throughout the history of the church.
BK: Yes.
DK: That’s what happens in the history of the church. Heresy doesn’t come, it doesn’t start as, oh yeah. That’s obviously heresy.
DZ: Yeah.
DK: It starts with just this little, small step of mis-prioritizing something.
DZ: Right.
BK: Yeah.
DK: And then off we go.
BK: And a lot of times those are done with the intention of making the gospel more relevant or more palatable or relatable to people.
DK: No. And I think now particularly for the every local church now it’s more missional. I mean, it’s… We should prioritize this because we’re gonna reach more people.
BK: Yes. Yes.
DK: And that’s kind of the trump card.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Maybe not.
BK: Maybe not. So what are some secondary things we tend to give more thought to and more significance to than we should?
DZ: Yeah. Well, we mentioned it in the last podcast, but it was like in terms of arranging and the musical side of the music, I feel like we tend to prioritize, these are gonna be… And even maybe the songs not just the arrangements, but these are gonna be the songs that move people. These are gonna be the arrangements that move people. And that’s not your primary concern.
BK: Right. It is a concern.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: You don’t wanna do boring songs.
DK: Right.
BK: You don’t wanna do songs with heresy in them or vague statements in them.
DZ: Right.
BK: But there is more to think about than just how is this… What lead line do we use in this song.
DZ: Yes. Right.
BK: If a song can’t exist without a lead line, maybe there’s a better song.
DZ: Yeah.
DK: I remember there was a time when I was leading with a consistent group of people. And normally would be, we would come to a song and we’d be like, well, what are we gonna do with this song? And that was kind of the priority, like, what mark are we gonna put on this song?
BK: Oh, I see.
DK: And what different thing? What are we gonna surprise people with? And certainly those things could serve people, they could add something…
BK: It’s not wrong to do that…
DK: But if that became, and at times it did became the priority. I think it undermined actually what we were gathered together to do.
BK: So how do you tell when it’s become the priority? Because I think on a Sunday morning, we love to treat a song maybe a little fresh, in fact Devon, I thought of what you said to me at one point, recently, just how you were surprised when you visited Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, how much like an album, we might have done certain songs, I thought about that, since then and thought, yeah, we don’t need to start every song with the same intro and just start with a single person. And, those kinds of things are just really helpful. But what are some of the ways? How do you know that the arrangement is becoming too dominant? In your thinking, ’cause I know some churches, they just do arrangements, it’s like this song Be Thou My Vision, this arrangement. In fact, this past Sunday, we were doing a number of songs that had no arrangements, they were just hymns or songs that didn’t have an arrangement. So we had to spend more time thinking about it, ’cause we were coming up with the arrangement then. But what have you seen where, if you either personally or in a church, where you’ve recognized, “Yeah, the arrangements are too important here.”
DK: Well, I was gonna say, I think it starts with our hearts and our disposition as we gather together and knowing why we’re gathering together. And as musicians it can be well, I’m here to play my part. Like, that’s why I’m here and that’s misguided. And one practice that you’ve modeled that I seek to cultivate as well, is just Sunday after Sunday, just those people that are involved in leading, just reminding them of what we’re doing. And even to the particulars of it, and so well, so and so is gonna read the call to worship, and this is the call to worship. And then that’s gonna lead us into singing this truth. And just kind of walking through. What we’re doing, it’s about the word of Christ dwelling in us richly. It’s about encountering God together. It’s about receiving from God together. And so that’s like, what we’re gonna be oriented towards, and then everything else is subservient to that. And meant to support that.
DK: And so we start there. And that just kind of I think it sets the tone in a lot of ways. If you don’t start there, then we just kind of jump right into music. And I’ve seen in the, I mean, I’ve been leading now for 20 years or so. And the various contexts that I’ve led in if I’ve got more time for rehearsal and practice throughout the week, like, I’ll fill it. I’ll come up with stuff to do. And so that season it was because I had all this time, it’s like, well, what are we going to do in practice on Wednesday night?
DZ: Exactly.
DK: Well, we’ll just figure out an arrangement for this song. And then when it comes to leading, then it’s like, well, we should do that arrangement, ’cause we’ve been working on it. And it just kind of feeds itself. And I think that’s where it becomes misguided when we’re really getting together to do our thing rather than I mean, it gets back to I think, mistake three making it about us instead of the church, but we’re gathered together to serve this people. One thing I find myself saying a lot to our church is, as we gather together, we’re doing something entirely different from anything the world can gather together to do.
DZ: Yeah, great point.
DK: And that begins with the presence of God among his people. And it’s all about God’s activity with his people. But it’s just entirely different. And so the categories of I think, performance and execution, they have a place, but they’re not primary as we gather together as the church.
DZ: Well, that’s really similar. I mean, Dev you nailed it. I think I was gonna say something similar in terms of liturgy, I think we can care so much. If you have that added time, you can care so much about production and the visual and how it looks and how it all sounds and spend more time in those categories than you do building a liturgy or a flow. That makes sense in your, that service in the week and that’s what I’ve learned so much from Bob is just how are we thinking through what we heard last week, and how that’s transforming us now, and how we’re going moving forward. I think people spend, can tend to spend less time on being intentional about how are we connecting these points and more with the arrangements and the production and how it looks and sounds.
BK: Yeah so it seems that one of the ways you can tell that you’re giving too much time and thought to arrangements is a void it’s never talking about what these mean. Why are we doing this, what these things are there for. Another category would just be visuals.
DK: Somebody had mentioned seeing an advertisement for 10,000. You can get these 10,000…
BK: I was just gonna mention that yes…
DZ: Alright…
BK: I, Instagram stories. And this ad came on for, you’ve got to get our visual library and if use Pro presenter or whatever, and thankfully, I don’t remember the name, and I wouldn’t say it anyway, but the company…
DK: Sure you wouldn’t…
DZ: Not that we’re gonna dog companies out here.
BK: No that’s not what we’re wanting to do, but they were using phrases like, “This will elevate your worship experience.”
DK: Number 932 will blow your mind.
BK: Something like that. I mean, it felt a little bit like that.
DZ: Engaging, provocative.
BK: Like you have not worshipped like you can or should be able to until you download these visuals.
DK: Number 463. What’s crazy is, I mean, so we have so much access to so many wonderful things. And it’s not like these backgrounds are wrong or sinful. But if you are responsible for leading this congregation and you get this package of 10,000 backgrounds. What does your week look like? Coming up. I mean like…
BK: It’s the time you’ve spent.
DK: If you’re really gonna use those 10,000 backgrounds, how long is that gonna take you to kind of sift through them and be like, oh yeah, this one’s oh yeah. I’m glad I made it to 7,356, because this is the one that we need for this song. That’s where secondary things become.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Right.
DK: Primary because…
DZ: What you’re prioritizing.
DK: That’s not what we’re called to do.
BK: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
BK: So I think it’s an issue of time but also attention, affection. Like what do I invest myself in? And what do I think? Oh, that went well, so it was a successful meeting. That shows us how significant we think certain things are in relation to things that God values. Which I don’t think we’ve enumerated them, but he values the preaching of his word. He values the rehearsal of the gospel. He values people singing with hearts filled with gratitude, who are teaching and admonishing one another. He values prayer. He values all these ways of interacting with him, of hearing his word proclaimed us, bearing witness to what he’s done. The gifts of the Spirit, the activity of the Holy Spirit in our midst. Those are the things, God values. Does He need our production to accomplish His ends? I mean, the clear answer to that has to be “no”.
DZ: Right.
BK: He can use them.
DZ: Right.
BK: But he doesn’t need them.
DZ: Right.
DK: That’s right.
BK: So that’s you know, there’s admin, we can make the successful meeting about is everything orchestrated perfectly. And I know that feeling when we’ll do like a Christmas service, this has been years past, part of big church. And I remember thinking more about, “Oh, is everybody supposed to, is everybody where they’re supposed to be? And is everything timed, right? And it’s like, “Wait a minute.”
DK: Not unimportant.
BK: No.
DK: But not most important.
BK: No. And if… I wonder, it’s like, “Should I even be like that ever? If it’s a gathering of the church, should I be more conscious of time allotments?” And yes, we should be conscious of time, but to the T, one minute, how long is this song? Four minutes and 13 seconds.
DK: Are you sure?
BK: Yeah.
DK: Are you sure, it’s four minutes and 13 seconds.
BK: Yeah. Well, well, if you do the count off, that adds up three seconds and…
DK: Don’t be taking my time.
BK: No. It’s like, “What are we doing?
DK: But I think to avoid this mistake, one thing I would encourage leaders to do is have conversations with let’s say your pastor…
BK: Absolutely.
DK: And those around you about, “What does God call us to do?” In this function, whatever function we’re serving in, what does God call us to be about. And make sure we’re keeping those things our priorities.
BK: Well, I think of video. I’m sorry. We could spend a long time in this one.
DK: Yeah. We have spent a long time on it.
DZ: And hopefully this, we have spent, sorry. It is a big mistake.
DK: It’s a big mistake. But we’ve got other mistakes.
BK: These are the seven biggest mistakes. So.
DZ: Well, I want you to finish your thought, but all we’re talking about leads into our next…
BK: Yes.
DK: Ooh, that’s a little teaser. So stick around, stick around for the next mistake.
[laughter]
DZ: Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go anywhere.
BK: The whole area of video and just how much time is given to video announcements, recording videos, and just…
DZ: Editing and… Yeah.
BK: Editing and people are in the church or using their time, their gifts, unless you have someone who you’re paying someone full time to do this, which is then is another question like, “Is that the best use of the church’s money?” And it’s all to do something that the Lord might use, but is it the…
DK: And he can use.
BK: And he can use.
DK: And he does use.
BK: And he does use. But does he have to have it? No, he doesn’t. So we can’t allow those things to be like… They become taskmasters. The things that we serve in order to make sure the meeting is successful.
DZ: Right.
BK: And we’re saying that’s a big mistake that leaders can make in giving more thought and significance to those secondary issues than the primary ones. All right. Let’s move on…
DZ: Well, and if you’re serving those things, you have no time to serve and shepherd the people that are in front of you.
BK: Yes. What a segue.
DZ: Which leads to point five, thinking more about performance…
DK: Mistake number five.
DZ: Thank you. Thinking more, Dev, can you do all of our intros and outros? [laughter] this is a new side…
DK: Possible. Yeah.
DZ: This is a new side. This is a new side to you.
DK: Yeah. It could be a good side hustle for me.
BK: That’s good.
DZ: Thinking more about your performance and production than serving and shepherding. I mean, yeah.
BK: Oh, men.
DZ: It’s like, this is what we’ve belabored in the time we’ve taken to tell you this. You’re spending all the time with all these details, when there are so many other opportunities and avenues of service in your church.
DK: Yeah.
DZ: If so much of our time is going to figuring out how the slides are working or how the production looks, it’s taking, something has to give. Sort of that theory.
BK: Yes.
DZ: If you’re giving your time here, something has to give.
BK: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Serving and shepherding are… They’re two distinct categories. We aren’t there to impress, we’re there to serve and we aren’t there to perform, we’re there to shepherd. I think that’s one of the biggest categories we’ve… I think we did a number of podcasts on this.
DZ: Shepherding.
BK: Shepherding people through song.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yeah. But it’s worth repeating. It’s one that when I stand up in front of people, my primary role, if I’m leading, not just singing the melody, but leading my primary role is to care for their souls as we sing. So that involves the choosing the songs. It includes how involves, how I lead them. What I say between them maybe during them.
DZ: Definitely what you’re saying in between them and during them.
BK: Yeah. It’s just focusing on the fact that we’re not just expressing our thoughts to God.
DZ: Yes.
BK: We are actually caring for one another. And as a leader, I have the opportunity to put words in people’s mouths that will enable them to teach and admonish one another. And in effect, counsel each other with the truth of the gospel, the truth of God’s word.
DZ: Well said.
BK: If I’m not aware of that, I’ll choose just songs that sound good. That feel good. And won’t think about, can someone walk out of here more confident of God’s love for them in Christ than when they walked in. More confident that God has power to defeat their sin, more confident that Jesus Christ has paid for all their sins, more confident that God will sustain them in the midst of their suffering. That’s shepherding. And too often we think about the performance and the production and just assume that’s what God will use to really affect people. It might affect them, but it won’t necessarily shepherd them.
DZ: That leads to a question for maybe worship leaders, well, young and old, that have been doing this for a long time or brand new to this. How do you think through during the week? Okay. What’s the best use of my time and how am I shepherding the people that I have in front of me on Sundays? What would you practically tell these people? How would you help them?
BK: I’d love to hear your thoughts on this stuff. One of the first things I started doing within the last 10 years was just starting to pray for people in the church. I use a prayer list and I pray for a lot of people in the church and I pray for them regularly. That really helps me as I choose songs. As I think about the week and as I’m standing in front of them, leading them, I’m aware they’re going through this, they’re going through that. They lost a job. They have a child who is ill, they’re… Whatever, the different situations. That helps immensely. Just talking to people during the week, engaging with people, talking to people after the meeting, before and after the meeting. That’s one of the primary times for me to find out, okay, what’s going on? What’s happening with people. ‘Cause you can talk to so many people in such a short amount of time. That helps as I think about what kind of songs would these people wanna sing?
DZ: Yes.
BK: What would you say?
DK: I was gonna almost say the exact same thing. It depends on what role you have. If you’re a worship pastor, it’s gonna look different than if you’re just a volunteer. But regardless be a participating member of your church. Be a part of what God is building in your local church. And that’s where the praying for people and participating in fellowship with people in the church, being a part of your community. Doing those things is how you participate in serving and shepherding in your congregation. And it does, it forms your categories for how you lead. It… Avoiding this mistake also helps us to avoid just kind of the tendency to be… To overly prioritize the here and the now. And so when…
BK: You mean like the experience?
DK: Yeah. And well, all my time is invested in making this Sunday great. And then when I finish this Sunday, then it’s all right, what are we gonna do next Sunday? But when it’s about serving and shepherding, it’s no, I’m here for the long haul or I’m playing a small part in what God is doing over the long haul is probably a better way to say it. Just in this season, however long I have… I’m in this season, and that could be the rest of my life, that could be the next six months. I don’t know. But God has me participating in his work as he builds his temple in this body. And I’m just one small part of that and I get to participate in that. And then I’m free from like, oh, what am I gonna do this week? No. Then I’m thinking, all right, just what’s… What words do I wanna put in people’s mouths?
BK: Yes.
DK: What songs do I want them going about their days with?
DZ: Yep.
DK: What songs are gonna sustain them in the midst of suffering? What songs are gonna encourage them and give them perspective in just every season of their life. And as a song leader, that’s what I’m then thinking about. Not what songs make me sound great or what are the hot songs right now? What’s everybody singing? Let’s sing that. It’s like, no, let’s care for these people that God has joined us together with.
DZ: Excellent.
BK: I think I just blanked, talking about people, caring for people. Oh my gosh. I can’t remember.
DK: It’s alright. You’re getting old.
BK: I know. Let’s move on the next point.
DK: Could be a mistake, but… [laughter]
BK: What’s… [laughter] Shepherding people under our care.
DK: Mistake number six.
BK: Let’s move on to mistake number six. Thinking that your performance is more important than your heart. Performance is the word we chose, but it’s just thinking that what you do on a Sunday morning, I remembered that point later, what I was gonna say, but I’ll come back to it. [laughter] That what you do externally is more important than what’s going on internally.
DZ: Yes.
DK: Could this also be stated as mistake number six, your phylacteries are broad.
BK: No.
DK: And your… This is fringes are long.
BK: That one is coming up. Yeah. That’s number seven. Don’t give it away. But hold on.
DK: Ignore that comment.
BK: Ignore that comment. Hold on, though. It’s coming.
DZ: That’s a weird comment. [laughter]
BK: Proverbs 4:23, “Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.”
DZ: Boom.
BK: The thing that God would direct our hearts to is our hearts. And say, it’s not enough that you’ve just come and you do. You come and you perform, you come and you sing, you come and you lead. What’s going on in your heart matters. And then I think of Jesus’s words, Matthew 15, we talked about this in the last podcast. “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” And I just would acknowledge openly on this podcast, there are times, many times when I’m singing in front of a congregation and I am not thinking about what I’m singing. It’s one of the reasons that I find it so helpful to insert at different times a phrase, that expands on what we’re singing, because I have to think about it to do that. And if I’m just singing the words, I got the words in front of me. I can just sing.
DK: Sometimes you close your eyes and sing those words? [laughter]
BK: No, never. [laughter] If I am just singing the words and not thinking about them, my heart’s not engaged. And I’m not being moved. I’m not being affected. I’m not loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I’m doing an action and people see it, doesn’t look any different from someone whose heart is engaged or someone who’s heart isn’t engaged, but God sees it. And we can assume that an effective leading is doing all the external things and not worrying about what my heart’s doing. That covers everything we’ve been talking about shepherding, and not performing, serving, those kinds of things.
DK: Well, it’s just that awareness. As we gather, God is doing something.
BK: Yes.
DK: And God is… Means to do something in my heart too. And I know we did talk about those mistakes of making it about us instead of Jesus, making it about us instead of the church. But there is the reality that God is doing something in us.
BK: Yes.
DK: As we gather. And that matters far more than our performance.
BK: Yes.
DK: And when, and kind of the function that we’re serving, as he conforms as the image of Christ.
BK: Well, it ties into the fact that Jesus is our worship leader. Jesus is the one leading us. And I, just as much as anybody else in the church, I’m there to receive from the Lord. If I don’t see it that way, my heart, oh, it’s so tricky. It starts to tell me that, yeah, yeah, you’re really good at this. Yeah. You deserve to do this. Yeah. You’re doing a really good job. And all those things where what I need to be doing is being astonished that Jesus will come to save me. That I am beloved of God, that I have an eternal destiny experiencing pleasures at his right hand, all because of what Jesus has done in spite of the fact that I sinned numerous times, numberless times, the day before. And here I am giving thanks to God that I am his child. How can that not be amazing? If I’m not giving attention to my heart, it won’t be amazing.
DZ: Well, and the opposite of what you’re… Of you’re… What you’re talking about are the people that are so… It becomes so duty. This is what I have to do and this is my job, and this is what I…
BK: Yes, yes.
DZ: And then it becomes almost begrudging. You’re mentioning that astonishment, I bet it’s so easy for guys to just go week in and week out. Yeah. It’s just… These are the songs and this is the… It’s not really their delight. It’s not really the desire of their heart.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Their heart is not in check.
BK: Yeah. I wanna mention two books, recommend two books, both by John Webster, which Devon and Tony Reinke both turned me on to. Christ Our Salvation and Confronted by Grace. In both of those books, they’re short books, short chapters, John does a wonderful job of helping us see the wonder of the gathering. In different ways, not every chapter speaks the…
DK: Well, the wonder of God’s grace.
BK: The wonder of God’s grace, that’s right.
DZ: Within our gatherings. Yeah.
BK: Which makes the gathering a time of wonder, astonishment, amazement, conversion. He uses the word conversion, not in the sense of saving faith, but just look, you’ve been in the world all week and you come together and your mind is readjusted. You are confronted with the reality of God’s glory in Christ and that should shock you. That should do something to you. And if we don’t have that attitude when we lead, if we’re just concerned about oh, I gotta get… Keep things in time, get things in tune, I gotta make sure everybody’s here and gotta do this arrangement. We’re gonna miss the most important thing about what we’re doing. And God doesn’t want us to do that. That’s a big mistake that we should…
DZ: That’s a ginormous mistake.
DK: We comin’ up on number six…
[overlapping conversation]
BK: Okay. We’re coming up…
[overlapping conversation]
BK: We’re coming up on the last one.
DK: Mistake number seven.
BK: Mistake number seven. Thinking Sunday mornings matter more than your daily life. We haven’t really talked about our daily lives.
DZ: That’s huge.
BK: That is huge.
DZ: Honestly that’s really big. It’s like, we’ve already said this, but it becomes your job, your duty, your… It’s just what I do. Yeah. It can breed hypocritical…
DK: Hypocrisy.
DZ: Hypocrisy. Thank you.
DK: You are welcome.
DZ: Thank you. It can breed… Yeah. Yeah.
BK: Well, and now you can share…
DK: Mistake number seven, [laughter] broad phylacteries and long fringes. [chuckle] Can you define that?
BK: Matthew 23:5, “they do all their deeds to be seen by others for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.” Devon, what is a phylactery?
DZ: I don’t know that.
DK: A little box that was carried on the Pharisees garments that held scripture.
BK: Thank you.
DK: And the bigger they were, obviously the more scripture you were carrying with you.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Yes.
DK: And it’s quite the show.
DZ: It’s like a Bible?
DK: Same as a long tassels, long fringes.
DZ: It’s like a big Bible.
BK: Yes.
DK: Yeah. Like a big Bible.
BK: Big Bible.
DK: Carrying a big Bible. [laughter]
BK: The point is…
DZ: He’s getting carried away.
BK: They are doing what they do so that others will see them.
DZ: Yes.
BK: What… This to me almost feels like the most important point.
DK: Yep. That’s why it’s mistake number seven!
BK: And we did a three part podcast on Music is Great, Jesus is Greater.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Which speaks to this.
DZ: Definitely listen to that, if you haven’t.
BK: But our… What we do musically in front of people is not what is most significant about our lives. It’s…
DZ: Totally.
BK: It’s who we are apart from that. And if the Jesus we sing about on Sunday mornings is not the same Jesus that we know during the week. Then there’s a dichotomy that shouldn’t be there. There’s a contrast that shouldn’t be there. There’s a disconnect that shouldn’t be there. Because we are getting to sing and pray to… About and speak of the God who actually saves us in Christ. He actually delivers us from the power of sin. He actually justifies us in his sight, closes us in the righteousness of Christ. He actually sustains us by his Spirit during times of suffering and gives us faith, imparts faith to us for life. If we don’t know that God, if we’re not living, growing to know that God better in our daily lives, we are gonna find singing about him either to be a real drudgery or it’s just gonna become increasingly hypocritical. And we all know those leaders who…
BK: In front of people, they just seem so full of faith. So full of joy, even, so full of confidence. And yet when you see their daily lives or have occasion to hear them speak off the record, so to speak, you think, “that’s a different person.” And God’s not honored by that dichotomy, that disconnect, He wants those who lead publicly to be those who know the goodness of God and Christ in their daily lives. That’s the mistake we definitely don’t wanna make. And I would encourage those who are… Who find themselves in that situation to take a break. Talk to your pastor, talk to your spouse, talk to your friends, talk to someone, people you trust, someone you trust, about what’s going on. Because it’s not, the Christian life is not, increasing success externally while you’re crumbling on the inside.
DZ: Amen.
BK: This year I’ve been a Christian 50 years, and I can say that my confidence in Christ is greater than ever. I love him more because I see his grace more. I see how unworthy I am more and although there’s plenty room to grow in that. But he’s just become increasingly more glorious, precious. I think that’s the way our lives should be. Because his… The… His great… It’s immeasurable riches of grace that God’s given us in Christ, in Ephesians 2. Immeasurable means, we’ll never reach the end. We get to enjoy that now in our daily lives.
DZ: Come on.
DK: And I think I… As we talk about this, we have to acknowledge this hypocrisy lurks in all of us.
BK: It is, Absolutely.
DK: And…
BK: Doesn’t mean there are no struggles.
DK: Yeah. It doesn’t mean there’s no struggles, but thanks be to God for his grace, which is immeasurable and so we’re accepted not in our performance, we’re accepted in Jesus Christ.
BK: Amen.
DK: By the Spirit. And we can serve with confidence and with joy.
BK: Amen.
DK: And in the freedom and the peace that comes in him. And what a gift that is.
DZ: Amen.
DK: It’s so wonderful that what we do publicly is not the real thing. That’s not the thing. It should be merely a reflection of who we are as we are astonished, as we bear astonished witness to the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
BK: Amen. Amen.
DZ: Amen.
BK: Now, to be totally honest, these, these are not… This is not a comprehensive list…
[laughter]
DK: Are you sure?
BK: I just want people to…
DK: I feel like that’s been false advertising. When You talked about seven biggest mistakes and now you’re backtracking.
BK: This is true. I just thought I should alert our listeners and viewers to the fact that we…
DZ: We wanna be transparent.
DK: I feel like I should’ve save dmy voice for that comprehensive list.
DZ: You should have. Yeah.
BK: You’re being a little bit facetious in that. And I did want to mention that there are more mistakes you can make. [laughter]
DZ: I don’t know if this is shocking to you, but… [laughter]
BK: We, yeah, we just have… And we didn’t mention, by the way, the setting for this podcast, we have not mentioned this particular podcast. We have moved, Sovereign Grace Churches, and Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville has moved into a new office building. And we are currently in transition, hence the background. The wonderful background we had has changed.
DZ: It has changed. It’s a new season.
BK: I hope that that hasn’t disrupted people.
DK: I feel like we should have started with that. I feel like at this point people don’t care.
BK: I know they probably don’t care, but someone was probably asking, “Why is the background difference?” I thought we should. [chuckle] Anyway, there are more problems that we can do. There are more mistakes we can make, but we hope this has served you. And we pray to God it does. We’re very serious. We have a lot of fun, but we’re very serious about the role that God gives people in the church to serve the glory of Christ and to proclaim his word and be good stewards of the gospel.
DK: And not take ourselves very seriously in the process. He’s very serious about those things.
BK: That’s exactly right.
DK: Not serious about ourselves.
DZ: Can you, Devon, can you just give us an outro, like thanks for being with us. [laughter]
DK: Join us next time for Sound Plus Doctrine. What you hear, will blow your mind.
DZ: Cut.
BK: Thank you.
