DZ: Hello and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
BK: My name is Bob Kauflin. Isn’t that incredible? Like, our names stay the same.
DZ: They do. But you know what doesn’t?
BK: What?
DZ: My Sovereign Grace Music hoodie.
BK: [chuckle] There you go.
DZ: That doesn’t stay the same. It’s very… It’s wonderful.
BK: You need to be watching this on YouTube if you’re not seeing it.
DZ: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s awkward if I just mentioned it on the podcast, but yeah, we have some merch out in the world. You can’t really find it, but if you come to our Prepare Him Room event, or you did come, or you’re about to, you’ll find it there. Okay, I’m off topic. Go ahead, Bob.
[laughter]
BK: A little bit. All right. Today we are gonna talk about, this is the title, Unpacking the Excuses Musicians Give.
[vocalization]
BK: Yeah, we had a few other titles for it, but we just thought that kind of sums it up, because musicians are prone to excuses.
DZ: Really?
BK: Well, you should know.
[laughter]
BK: And Fabrizio Rodolfo, who works with us, he should know.
DZ: Yeah, he’s…
Fabrizio Rodolfo: That’s not true!
DZ: There he is again.
[laughter]
BK: Our videographer. We’ve addressed… We’ve said stuff about this in different podcasts.
DZ: We have. It’s worth a podcast.
BK: It’s worth a podcast of its own, because here’s the problem. Musicians, church musicians for sure, but all musicians do this, tend to justify or excuse or rationalize the way they act because they’re musicians. And so we want to hone in on some of those words, phrases we throw out, kind of, oh, because this. Oh, I’m this. I’m this. And see if we can’t come to more biblical understanding of what’s going on. I mean, this isn’t… We’ve all experienced these things, especially you.
DZ: Totally. [laughter] You know, shots will be fired on this podcast today. You will feel convicted on this podcast if you’re a musician. No, I think…
BK: Well, let me just say, if you’re listening to this by yourself, get your team to listen to it.
DZ: Yes, listen to it together.
BK: I think they’ll have a good laugh.
DZ: And then you can point at each other.
BK: Yeah. No, no, no.
[laughter]
DZ: Yeah, but we’re giving excuses because we tend to think that we’re bringing so much to the table.
BK: Well, a lot of reasons.
DZ: You know, practicing gear, time, commitment, faithfulness, all that stuff. So that’s where we feel like we get a pass.
BK: Yes. And we’ll get into this. Yes. And it’s true that God makes people differently, and an artist has peculiar temptations. But we want to talk about them as temptations and not simply temperaments.
DZ: Ooh.
BK: I think that was just something I just made up.
DZ: Really?
BK: Yeah. The spirit gave it to me.
DZ: You write that down in your notes?
BK: Yeah. No, it’s just not in my notes.
DZ: Oh, wow.
BK: I forgot what it was, though. Yeah, we…
DZ: And he took it away.
BK: They’re temptations, we think of them as temperaments. And we just let them go on. And it can cause, well, problems. It can cause conflict.
DZ: Ego.
BK: Ego. Yeah, we tend to just put up with things that, well, we use morally neutral words sometimes to describe what could be a heart issue or a sin issue. And so that’s why we’re talking about this. This is more of the culture of your band, culture of your team, especially as it relates to things that we say about our behavior that we justify because we’re a musician. So I think we have six of them, seven of them. Okay. Yeah. So first, I’m sensitive. I’m…
[laughter]
BK: Okay. So for each one of these, there are some strengths.
DZ: It’s gonna be funny for you to read these because I don’t see these in you, which is hilarious.
BK: Well, we talked to Devin, my son, about doing this podcast with us. He said, yeah, I don’t think…
DZ: Yeah. Devin is the opposite.
BK: I don’t think like this.
[laughter]
BK: No, but…
DZ: Okay, I’ll take the shots. Sensitive, yes.
BK: There is… You definitely would be this.
[laughter]
BK: And I like to think of myself as this way. You know, you’re compassionate. You’re tenderhearted. You feel things. And of course, I mean, a musician, especially a songwriter and artist should feel things. They’re sensitive to things. We can use that as an excuse when we’re hurt. We’re offended.
DZ: Yeah. Or our idea doesn’t see the light. Yes.
BK: Yes. Yes. Well, you know, I’m sensitive. So I think the Bible term for that would be self-focused. And Philippians 2:4, Paul’s instructing us on how to have the mind of Christ. He says, “let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” So that sensitivity is only directed one way. It’s me. I’m sensitive to what I feel, what I’m thinking, what my experiences have been. I’m not as sensitive to what others might feel, how others might be affected too by my behavior. That’s not even an issue. So let’s call it for what it is. It’s self-focus, it’s selfishness. Not all sensitivity is. That’s why there’s a strength to it. But it can be.
DZ: It can be.
BK: It can drift into that.
DZ: And also, can I just briefly…
BK: You can interrupt any time.
DZ: So I also think, though, with overly sensitive people, you lose out on the iron sharpening iron aspect of our gathering.
BK: Yes. Or our team.
DZ: Or our team, you know, if there’s… Where unity is formed or forged, is sometimes through that conflict. You know?
BK: Yes. Absolutely.
DZ: And so it’s like, if the focus is not on you, and maybe you’re doing something that’s distracting or doing something… Or you’re just, yeah, you’re feeling a certain way towards a call that your worship leader gave, or your idea, like, hey, don’t play on this measure, or this song, or whatever, when you internalize those, you’re also losing out on the ability to go, no, the Lord is using this to shape me and to grow me.
BK: I think that’s Proverbs 17:17 if my memory serves me correctly.
DZ: And sanctify me because we’ve talked about this a lot. This isn’t the gig. You know? I don’t come to the gig and then play, get paid and leave. I’m doing the one and others together.
BK: Yes. Proverbs 27:17. Iron sharpens iron. One man sharpens another. So yeah, just being sensitive cuts off a lot of work that the Lord wants to do.
DZ: Yeah, sanctifying work.
BK: Second, and it leads, it kind of flows out of the first one, and this would be very common for musicians. I’m just moody. I’m just emotional. And there’s a good side to that. We’re in touch with our feelings that God has given us. We feel things deeply. And again, kind of like being sensitive, artists see things differently than, say, accountants do, typically, or lawyers, or construction workers. I mean, there’s just this, okay, there’s more to this than meets the eye. It’s not just what you see on the surface. There’s more here. And so that can be a real positive, and it’s one of the reasons musicians are musicians. They help us feel things. The downside is that we can be ruled by our emotions.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: We can be ruled by our desires. The New Testament doesn’t talk a lot so much about feelings. It does talk a lot about desires, which are the things we feel, the things we want. This is how it talks about it, Ephesians 4:22, “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.” So these things I want, these things I feel, well, you know, a lot of those are deceitful, and we can’t run our lives by those. Galatians 5:24, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its”, I don’t know, where did it go, “with its passions and desires.” We put it to death. It’s not something we’re feeding all the time. Now, again, there’s that tension, because, you know, as an artist, you’re wanting to feel things. And you’re wanting to feed that. I mean, do you ever listen to a song, you’re feeling happy, you put on a happy song. You’re feeling kind of, you know, melancholic, you put on a melancholic song. That’s okay. That’s good.
DZ: I cut you off. Go ahead.
BK: No, that’s all right.
DZ: I’m sorry. No. I was just gonna say, in that same train of thought, as a leader, we’re not manufacturing this emotion, but if you are engaging in the truths that you’re singing in the moment and people are seeing that, it can be a wake-up call to them. So I think that’s a strong thing to be emotional in that sense, of like, I can’t believe this truth. You should be singing this. You should be singing this. They can go, wow, yeah, I’m missing that. And so I do think that’s a great strength. We’re not just taking the truth like this and it needs to be in your heart and you need to feel it.
BK: Yeah. Well, I’m always helped, I’m sure I’ve shared this on the podcast, by the distinction between affections and emotions. Emotions are what we feel. Affections are why we feel them. And just being emotional, it just says something’s going on inside us. The affections are what’s going on inside. It’s those desires, it’s those cravings, it’s those wants, it’s the things that motivate us. That’s what God wants to speak to, that’s what He wants to address. But we can settle for just being emotional. And then one more scripture, 1 Peter 4, “we want to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.” So even though we might be emotional, might feel things very deeply, we’re not living our lives by that. We’re living our lives for the will of God. So it’s never an excuse to be angry, never an excuse to be overly depressed, never an excuse to be, whatever emotion you might struggle with, because we live for the will of God. And we can do that because Jesus has come and crucified, we’ve been crucified with Him, we no longer live, we live in Him.
DZ: That’s excellent.
BK: Number three, and this would be typical for anybody as an excuse, I’m busy. I’m busy, man. Do you know how much I got going on? You were saying that earlier, you know, we’re getting things done. I’m practicing. I’m not wasting my life. I just got a lot of things going on in my life. I’m a musician. Maybe disorganized might be a better word, just so frantic. The weakness to that is we’re unaware that we’ve all been given the same amount of time. Like musicians don’t get less time, you know, God gives you 23 hours for each day. And our busyness, you know, there’s a lot of reasons for our lives feeling out of control, feeling overwhelmed. It could be that we’re doing too much. It could be wrong priorities; we’re doing the wrong things. It could be a lack of self-control, you know, we just don’t know how to say no. It could be a desire to be thought well of, like I’m gonna be seen as the person who’s just always like…
DZ: Proactive, doing stuff.
BK: Well, I was thinking of the person who’s always like barely getting things done ’cause I’m doing so much.
DZ: Oh, yes.
BK: I mean, that’s… I’m very familiar with that mindset, you know? Other people get things done early, I get things done at the last minute, because it looks like I sacrifice so much to get this done. You know, coming in late, you know, where are you? Oh, yeah, I just have all this stuff I need to do. You know, yeah, I think that’s an excuse. I think you’re not really getting to what’s at the heart of that. And the heart is you just think of yourself as elite. No one’s as busy as you are. Or maybe you just want to look really special and really hardworking.
DZ: Right. Yeah, I think, just speaking to this, when I was in LA and I was a full-time musician, I remember there were moments where I would be playing all week with different artists and stuff, and I would come into a Sunday gathering and be playing songs and feeling like it was a one-for-one. And I really had to…
BK: What do you mean?
DZ: Like, this is just like playing with everybody else.
BK: Oh, okay. Yeah.
DZ: And I think the busyness mentality… Here’s what I’m saying. I think that busyness mentality is that doesn’t feel any different than everything else you’re doing, but to pause and to stop and realize, no, this is the most important thing. And our local gatherings are the most important thing we’re doing. So to come in frantic and to come in with this mindset of, oh, I’m doing so many things, this is just another thing, you lose out is what I’m saying.
BK: Wrong priorities.
DZ: Wrong priorities. Yeah.
BK: Everything. Everything’s a priority. If everything’s a priority, nothing is, and then we lose sight of, yeah, what we really should be doing.
DZ: Yeah. It’s just our pride, again, just masquerading.
BK: It’s funny how that slips in for all these. So Ecclesiastes 3 says, “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” God’s given us a time for every matter, “time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, time to pluck up what is planted, time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, time to build up, time to weep, time to laugh.” There are times for doing what we’re supposed to do. So we know that. We’ve all been given the same amount of time. God has given us the time to do what He wants us to do, and to do it peacefully. And then I thought of Philippians 2:3, “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” I think this is one of the reasons that people can come in late. And I’ve struggled with lateness all my life. And I thank the Lord that there’s been some change in that. Julia’s not always assuming I’ll be 15 minutes later than I said I would be. It’s closer to more like five now. But I was gonna say, I’m grateful that in Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, I just said this to someone on Sunday, our musicians are generally not doing this, not coming in… They’re committed to being on time. And they don’t act like they’re so busy that they can’t… Maybe a better title of this would have been late. You know, I’m just late ’cause I’m a musician. But it’s tied to, yeah, all this other stuff I’m doing.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Well, you’re not in humility counting others more significant than yourself. And I’ve recognized that many times, been convicted by it. I just think my time’s more important than everybody else’s. Like something about my life is unique, that no one else either has the responsibility or the crises or the important matters that I have to attend to. So it’s okay for me to walk in late as though this is just the norm, guys. And I don’t want to be like that.
DZ: True. It’s so funny. That is the truth. We just never say it that way. [laughter]
BK: That’s why we’re doing this podcast.
DZ: We’re walking in 15 minutes late with our Starbucks. [laughter]
BK: Well, that’s… You never…
FR: Hey!
BK: Sorry, Fabrizio, that wasn’t directed at anybody in particular. Yeah.
DZ: Yeah. It is your own selfish ambition.
BK: And so let me say, to change in any of these, it’s gonna require confession. It’s acknowledging, this is what I’m really doing. God loves walking in the light. 1 John, “if we walk in the light, sees in light, we have fellowship with one another. Blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” We are called to just be real about what’s going on. So that’s why we’re doing this podcast, to help us be more real.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So number four, I’m insecure. And I hear this one a lot.
DZ: Yeah, same.
BK: From, well, instrumentalists as well, usually vocalists. It could be, the strength is, it could be a sign of humility and awareness of our dependence. I’m just not sure. That’s a great thing. He was wise. See a man who’s wise in his own eyes, there’s more hope for a fool than for him. So you don’t want to be wise in your own eyes. You want to be a little, I’m not sure. But on the flip side, and this is more often the case it seems, it could be a sign that we want others to think as highly of us as we think of ourselves, and we’re afraid they’re not going to. And that makes us insecure. It could be basically fear in man more than God.
DZ: Yeah, totally.
BK: When God puts us in a place to fulfill a role, and we’re afraid it’s not gonna look like something, it’s not gonna be something, it’s not gonna be as impressive as we want it to be, well, that makes us insecure. And the Bible talks about that. God says, the praise that we receive is going to be a test. It’s going to be a revealer of our hearts. And it said, the praise we receive or don’t receive. So Proverbs 27:21, “the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.” So we’re getting tested, and one of the ways that we fail that test is when we say, I don’t wanna do anything, I don’t wanna sing, I don’t wanna play, ’cause I’m just insecure.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: You’re not going to get the praise.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: But our praise comes from God. And it’s through Jesus Christ. And so our call is to be faithful, to do what we can do, and then to humbly ask for and receive any input about how we can do it better. Because we want to serve not impress. Which is, it’s easy to say these things, it’s much more difficult to walk them out. But think about what Paul said when he was preaching to the Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 2. He says, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.” I was insecure. “And my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” So Paul’s basically saying, I don’t care how I feel. I know what God’s called me to do, and I’m going to do that with faith. I’m going to do that to please him. And if bringing glory to God means that I look bad, then I want to bring glory to God. And I’ve had plenty of opportunities to exhibit that.
[laughter]
DZ: Exactly. That’s good.
BK: So I don’t want anymore, Lord, if you’re listening, there you are. Okay, here’s another one.
[laughter]
DZ: I’ve learned. I’ve learned.
BK: Do you have anything about insecurity? I mean, have you ever felt insecure in playing…
DZ: No.
BK: Okay.
[laughter]
BK: Great.
DZ: That’s my own pride. I just think, yeah, I think wanting the Lord to use us in our weakness…
BK: That’s a good way to put it.
DZ: I’ve definitely experienced the times where I’ve been meaning to say something or, and I don’t, it doesn’t come out right, that is where the Lord tests me and strengthens me. And in my weakness, I just go like, Lord, that has to be, you have to use it. That needs to be our focus anytime we’re leading or doing anything, even on an instrument, Lord, you have to use this. Because if I just bring it by myself…
BK: Well, you have to use it in the sense of you have to make it worth something.
DZ: Yes. You have to do the work, to use this for your glory.
BK: Yes. Yeah.
DZ: Because if not, I’m only relying on my own strength, and I’m only relying on what I bring to the table.
BK: Yes. Yes.
DZ: So a real awareness of the spirit’s work in our lives.
BK: And I thought of the contrast between someone who’s very forthright, putting themselves forward, aggressive, it’s obvious they’re proud, versus someone who comes in and just, oh, I don’t know if I could do this. And it seems like two very different people, but the root could actually be the same.
DZ: Oh, yeah.
BK: The root is I want people to think great things about me. The first is confident that people will think great things about me. The second is unsure whether people will think great things about me, but we shouldn’t be pursuing what people think about us. We want to be pursuing what people think about Jesus, about his word, about God, about his purposes. And that frees us up. So if you’re an insecure musician, we pray this is, and we did a podcast…
DZ: Yeah. On being an anxious leader.
BK: Yeah, being an anxious leader. Yeah, I think we spoke to some of those things there, but anyway, that’d be helpful, hopefully. Number five, you’re just a creative out of the box thinker. I’m a creative, so we’re creative. Let’s get all the creatives together. I hear that a lot. And there’s something really good to that. It’s, and really there is something that’s really good to that, we’re looking for fresh and impacting ways to do things. We don’t want people to be going through the motions, going through things without being engaged.
DZ: Right, I was just going to add one more thing to this creative. I also want to say like contrarian.
BK: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
DZ: I think, when I think of a creative, I also think of art that affects us typically pushes up against a preconceived notion. Like you think of a musician or a songwriter or an artist or a painter, that’s historically how art has progressed. It’s like pushing what you think is normal.
BK: It’s out of the bounds.
DZ: That’s out of the box. Yeah, what you said. So I do think there is a beautiful benefit to contrarians in terms of we don’t want to go through the motions. You just said that.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: But there is like, and you’re going to get into it, there is such a fine line with contrarians. It’s like, it’s like when I look at Christian music, quote unquote, it’s like you have historically contrarians in Christian music. Eventually they just were like, yeah, it’s not cool anymore, so I need to make it cool.
BK: Yes.
DZ: And we can have those in our local churches. So I think this is a great point.
BK: Well, and what’s so odd is that what begins as creativity becomes after a time what everybody’s doing.
DZ: Right.
BK: I mean, you watch cultural trends and that’s exactly what happens. But what you’re saying is exactly why God gives people creative gifts is that it does move us out of our routineness, our wrought-ness, our ritualistic practices that aren’t really affecting us. So, “amen!” for creatives.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: But the weakness can be, and how it can tend to be used to our own advantage by ignoring this, is that it can show a lack of concern for whether or not other people are actually benefiting from our creativity.
DZ: Yeah. Great question.
BK: Whether it’s actually serving people, whether it’s actually clear to them. So I think in 1st Corinthians 14:8, Paul’s talking about the difference between tongues and prophecy, but he makes this point. “If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?”
[laughter]
DZ: Are you… Is Paul talking about jazz?
[laughter]
BK: Possibly. I didn’t think of that. That’s an application. So we can think that our creative thing, it’s just amazing, but if the people in our church don’t understand it or it’s unclear or… Someone said a picture’s worth a thousand words, but the person who’s seeing it gets to decide what those words are. Which I think is a great point.
[laughter]
BK: So in the use of our creativity, it’s not just about creativity, creativity isn’t something you do, it’s the way you do something. And that something, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 14:12, is to excel in building up the church. So the goal isn’t for me to be as creative as I can. I want to be creative, use the gifts God’s given me, but then I want the people around me telling me, this is really helpful. This helps me know Christ better. This helps me treasure His word more. This makes me more humble. This makes me more joyful in Christ. Not, wow, that was really cool. That’s not the goal of what we’re doing. So there can be conflicts in churches between the creatives and the theologians. And there shouldn’t be. All of us have the same purpose, and that is that Christ be honored in our bodies, whether by life or by death. That’s our goal. Not that we be honored, not that our creativity be honored. And there may be a lag at times between where people catch up to creative things, and that will happen, it can take some time, because there’s always a resistance to new things. But there are other times when the creatives are just saying, hey, you just gotta accept us because we’re creatives. And we’re going to hang out together because we all know how we really feel.
DZ: Right.
BK: Well, let’s expose that. Let’s unpack that and say, you know what, we might be wanting to hang out together just because we help each other feel good about what we’re doing, but we’re not really concerned about the non-creatives. We need to be concerned about the non-creatives and how they’re processing what we’re doing. So again, Paul, when he’s talking about tongues, 1 Corinthians 14:17, “you may be giving thanks well enough”, you may be creative enough, “but the other person is not being built up. I thank God I speak in tongues more than all of you.” You don’t see that verse extrapolated upon much in cessationist churches. “Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue.” So Paul’s very clear. It’s not about what makes us feel right and feel good and feel like we’re getting close to God. It’s about what serves the church.
DZ: Absolutely.
BK: Number six, procrastinator. I’m just a musician. [laughter] It’s just part of my nature. It’s part of my temperament. It just takes me a long time to get things done. So I tried to think of strengths for that and there weren’t many. Why put off today what I can put off tomorrow? I just put off till whenever. There can be a sense in which a procrastinator can be giving thought to what they’re doing. Circumspect. We’re not just thinking of the Proverbs 13:16, “every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly.” I don’t want to be a fool flaunting my folly. I’m going to take time, give thought to things. Maybe they’re using that first. I don’t know.
DZ: I think one more thing you could add to procrastinator, it could potentially be like an improviser. I want to think of the church musician who, and this is me, and if you’ve known me for any length of time, I’m guilty of this. Can you listen to the song before Sunday? And then I show up and I haven’t listened to the song. And I go, well, I’ll just wing it because I can adapt. I can improvise.
BK: So you’re procrastinating basically based on your pride?
DZ: Yes. Basically it’s, I can walk into a scenario and not work on it. That sort of procrastination, or I’ll fit it in right at the end. That procrastination, it’s still pride because what I’m saying is my time is more valuable than what you’ve asked me to do. You’ve asked me to listen to the song, to learn it, so I can come in prepared.
BK: I’m getting convicted just as you’re talking. Go ahead.
[laughter]
DZ: I do think that’s one thing that you could add to the procrastinator, is the improviser.
BK: Yes. Yeah. And again, these are morally neutral words, euphemistic words. The improviser, what a great thing to be.
DZ: Yeah, you can adapt. You’re not so tight and worried, yeah.
BK: So flexible. And the weakness is you’re really inconveniencing others.
DZ: Right. They all learned it.
BK: Yeah. They spent the time. And you’re failing to do all God wants you to do. And a lot of times it’s rooted in laziness. It’s just laziness and pride, they go together. Proverbs 6:6-8, “go to the ant of sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, without having any chief, officer or ruler or someone telling her what to do, insisting that she be prepared. She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” Yeah, lots of things we can learn about the sluggard, like this one, Proverbs 19:24, “the sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth.” That picture is so graphic. There’s something I’m planning to do, something that’s going to be good for people, something that will bless people, something that will encourage others. I put my hand in the dish and get ready to do it. I don’t even bring it back to my mouth. And that’s the sluggard. And let’s call it what it is, and repent, confess and repent, and ask God for grace to do the things that he’s called us to do. Last one, I’m just a volunteer.
DZ: That is such a powerful excuse. What do you expect of me, Bob?
BK: Yeah, sorry, David. Well, you’re paid, so that’s different, at least for Sovereign Grace Music. But in the church, you’re not. We did a podcast on that.
[laughter]
DZ: We did, yeah. But this is a popular excuse, like, why do I need to devote as much time, or why do I need to take this seriously?
BK: Yeah, well, and you suggested this one.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Just, you’ve seen it. You’ve felt it. I mean, yeah, you’re using your time to serve God’s people. Got a lot going on. Kinda like the busy one. And the weakness is you’re really lacking a heart to serve.
DZ: Yeah. Well, let’s say the strength is you’re volunteering.
BK: Yeah. Okay. Yes.
[laughter]
BK: Amen. Amen.
DZ: And thank you. Amen and thank you.
BK: I mean, there’s almost a sense you can get from people sometimes, and no one in my church, I showed up. I’m here. I mean, how much do you want me to do?
DZ: Right.
BK: I’m here.
DZ: Right.
BK: But it just goes against God’s… Yeah, the way God wants us to think about serving.
DZ: Yeah. And it’s a low bar. I mean…
BK: It’s a very low bar. [laughter]
DZ: The church is an incredible place to serve the Lord.
BK: And you don’t have to be paid. And you might have a lot of other things you’re doing. And the leadership may not be as grateful or encouraging as they could be. But it is the Lord Christ you are serving. That’s very humbling.
DZ: Very humbling.
BK: When we serve the church, we are serving the body of Christ. So when I was thinking about this, I thought of a verse in Ecclesiastes 9, where it says, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.” So while we’re here, we have opportunity to do the things God called us to do. Do them with your might.
DZ: Yeah. All your strength.
BK: Don’t be slacking it. And then Romans 12 talks about the way we relate to one another, “love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.” Do we think about our role that way? I really want to honor all the other people who are serving on the team. “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit and then serve the Lord.” It’s a powerful motivation to recognize that if Jesus were to walk in the room, the way we serve the church is the way we’re serving him. They’re not two separate things. We are serving the body of Christ. And this is a huge privilege. So hopefully that affects our thinking in terms of that. And hopefully this whole conversation is helpful and you may come up with other things, other excuses you give about the way you are because you’re a musician.
DZ: Yeah. Put them in the comments, and we can all laugh about them.
BK: And we want to encourage you as a team to speak truthfully and humbly about our shortcomings, our limitations, even our sins. Because Jesus didn’t die for our musical temperament. He died for our sins and he means to change us. 1 Peter 2:24, “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, by his wounds you have been healed.” So, there is hope, even though we might experience the temptations for the rest of our lives, there is hope for real change. When we stop using phrases and words that make us sound really great and start thinking of these things in the way that God sees them and then receive His grace through Jesus to actually change, we’ll be happier, the people around us will be happier and God will be glorified.
[music]
DZ: Yes. Amen. Great.
BK: So we hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation. We certainly have.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And look forward to next time.
DZ: Yeah, thank you so much for listening.
