Polemics - Discernment - Christian Music

Alright, well let's start a church split today, shall we? We're going to talk about Christian music, and if there's anything that makes people angry, it's not doctrine, it's just the style of worship music you have, right? I had taught this lesson when we did this series about a decade ago. And I looked at the handout that I'd written, and I decided that despite my best efforts 10 years ago, that it needed to be rewritten. So this is mostly new material compared to 10 years ago if you were in this class or had exposure to that lesson on the internet. We want to address today not just the Christian music industry or what is Christian music in the sense of what you can go buy at the store, but we want to actually go ahead and look at what does the Bible say about Christian music.

A lot of the other lessons that we've been doing more recently, talking about people on television or talking about people who are groups that are parachurch groups have been focused on things that are outside of the doors of Holly Hills for the most part. But because the topic of Christian music eclipses, or not eclipses, but overlaps with the the services that we have here at Holly Hills where we talk about or we actually engage in worship, we want to take a look at what the Scriptures say instead of just looking at what's outside, but instead we want to look at what's in the Scriptures, what does it say, and what are some principles that we can have discernment in looking outside and seeing what is available potentially for us to consume as listeners and possibly as musicians or singers as well. I want to first, as a disclaimer, just because I do worship here at Holly Hills some of the Sundays doesn't mean that what I say would matter if I had an opinion, does it? Who cares if it's against the scripture?

So we need to take a look at We need to take a look at the culture, and we need to take a look at assumptions that are there. So the first sentence here in this is, it has been said, culture is what we do without thinking. And I think that's an interesting definition of culture.

But when we think about music, Christian music in general, that's actually been a very defining part of the culture that I grew up with. as a believer in a Christian home. I can remember listening to Petra and Michael Peace, who was a Christian rapper. I can remember my parents listening to Christian rap in the car when I was I think 6th or 7th grade, somewhere in there.

Listening to it now. I actually went back and listened to some of the music to see what it sounded like and it's pretty hokey, but It was it was the culture was the thing that we did without thinking we had the music and music was part of the culture and we would listen to it and Sometimes the songs were Frankly rubbish the words of the songs not just the music itself was terrible My dad has an MBA, amongst many other degrees, and one of the things that I heard him say multiple times growing up is that if you don't have anything to say, sing it. So when you listen to jingles on the radio or on the television, if you don't fast forward through commercials with a DVR, the music itself may have very little lyrical content, but they'll sing it, and it'll get stuck in your head. I'm pretty sure that if we If I were to test this group here, I could probably hum a few notes and you would think of the rest of the words. And that's part of how music becomes part of the culture and becomes part of the way that we're thinking without thinking about it.

So let's ask about some of these assumptions that are common within the church. How about Christian music is worship music. If it's not worship, it's not Christian music. Can we say that? Is that a safe assumption? Or a primary consideration in Christian music is how it makes me feel.

That's always a good one. If it makes me feel good, then it must be more spiritual. Or old hymns are the best, because they have continuity with the past, being time-tested. Or the new songs are the best because they connect with and speak to the present culture.

Or as long as the music helps me focus on my faith, it's got to be a good thing. I don't know if you ever listen to the Christian radio stations, but the Christian pop station pretty regularly plays these little edited bits that people say, when I listen to the radio station it makes me feel good or it helps me focus on Jesus. And the funny thing is that oftentimes Jessica and I will turn off the radio because the words of the song are atrocious. But the theme of their little marketing blips that they put in there, the sound bites, is it makes me feel good, so it must be good. Or it makes me focus on my faith, so it's a good thing. I think most of Christendom is bought into that.

Partially why I joked when we started that let's start a church split today when we talk about Christian music is we were at a church in Carson City, Nevada that got inundated by another church that went through church split and when they came in they brought in a bunch of bad theology and some of it showed up in the songs and so a bunch of people left the church that was inundated with the old church that went through a split and caused another split because the doctrine was terrible. But people said I feel blessed by the songs and so therefore it was okay. That's anecdotal though so let's dive in here.

I've got a list of questions here and Normally it's a bad idea to just read off a list of questions, but I want to ask these questions and then as we go through the lesson, let's see if we can answer some of them. To what extent does it have an impact on how we live and act as a source of our living as there is an understood purpose for the Christian music that directs our decision for listening and involvement in the music? Is there a line to be drawn between Christian music and non-Christian music, and what should the Christian's view of any such distinction be? Which music should we embrace, and which should we shun, if any? So we're going to ask ourselves about music here, but that's really a trick question. How can you tell a Christian song? How do you know something is Christian music?

You're making a joke. Did you say because of the F chord? Yeah, OK. And actually, Nick Hemingway, the guy who plays bass with us, will tell you that the songs that have a lot of F chord are probably not good Christian songs because it's really hard to play a lot of F notes on the bass. But how do you tell that a song is a Christian song? That we really need to be able to, if we're going to keep using the term Christian music or a Christian song, how do we know? Morgan?

So when you're describing that, which part of the song are you describing? The lyrics. It's important that we understand that the lyrics are an important part. So we have the motive of the song. Who is writing the song? It's possible to write a song that doesn't have Jesus or God in it and still have it be about our faith. That could be because it's a song that's going over the narrative, and we'll take a look at one of those a little later on, the narrative of a Bible story.

But the motive is definitely going to be part of it, and then the lyrics. So we want to consider those things. What are some biblical motives for listening to and or singing That's a good starting point. Edification. Instruction. Thanking God. So we have a lot of things that are actually in Scripture for us to consider when we look at those things.

So let's take a look at Colossians 3.16, and we'll come back to this as well.

Briefly, Colossians 3.16, he says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So who is that directed to? Christians. And Christians directed to Christians. Christians directed to Christians.

Yeah. He says to one another. So the words should matter because we're going to use them for edification purposes. And we're going to use them to instruct one another, which means that they probably should have solid doctrine. Otherwise, I could come alongside you and be reminded of a song that's got junky theology and come alongside and say, hey, here's the junky theology. That's not good. That's not what Paul's instructing here, is it? So we have teaching and admonishing.

Another one is meditation. We'll take a look at that a little later on when we look at the Psalms. but also praying and prayer. So there's the idea that we would have a song that is either in scripture and therefore inspired by the Spirit, and we would argue that that's probably a really good song to have in your head. But the purpose is for edification in the body, in part, or to be focused and directed on the Lord. So there's things that are personal, that are internal with meditation, things that are outward towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, and things that are directed in the Lord. That seems like that's kind of an important thing, and that it should be an important thing that the theology would be accurate.

Let's take a look, just for consideration, let's take a look at Psalm 150. And let's ask, what are the who's, the what's, and the where's prescribed in this text? This is somebody telling the Hebrew believers that we're singing the psalm to do something. This is not a legalistic to-do list, but let's take a look at what the author writes here. He says, Praise the Lord. Praise God and His sanctuary.

Well, we're in luck. Well, we're in God's divine providence, right? We're in the sanctuary. So, we've got one down, right? So, praise God in the sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty expanse. Well, it's time to go outside then, right? Then he says, praise Him for His mighty deeds. So, what would that be? Praising Him for His mighty deeds. Say that again? Creation? Okay, creation would definitely be that. But God's sovereignty and God's weakness, that would reflect some thankfulness, wouldn't it? Praising Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound.

Now, I have to say that I'm always glad when I read this because I really like trumpets. But don't worry, it's going to get more exciting. So phrasing with trumpets. And what does a trumpet do? If we were to describe trumpets, or horns, if we're going to use that vocabulary, how does that sound?

Kaylee. Yeah. Brother and sister always said it was just bling. It was just what? Blaring. Blaring, yeah. Well, it's loud and it calls out with a clear, strong voice. Crystal? In ancient times, the trumpet was called arms, it was called action, it was called something, it was the sound of okay, now let's go time. So it has a very distinct sound that carries through air. It cuts through a lot of noise. It makes the waves go over long distances.

So let's ask... In history, militarily, it's what she was saying. It was used to call to arms and to get attention and to make the enemy more afraid. It was the one military function of the priests. Think of the priests, they do stuff in the temple and all that. It was the one military function they had was the priests were to go out and blow the trumpets. trumpet sound. So here's the tricky part.

It's not that tricky, so I don't want to oversell it. But how does someone praise with the trumpet? There's no lyrics, right? There's no words. But it's the notes and the melody with the purpose, the motivation. So that's partially why we talk about the motivation, what's in the heart of the person playing the trumpet.

The next line, praise him with harp and lyre. And a modern adaptation of the lyre is the guitar, so I feel like that's an OK thing. I'm going to embrace that and personalize it. And then we're going to get into another slightly divisive line here. Praise him with timbrel and dancing. The timbrel, it's percussion, it's drums. Drums and church, it's OK. And dancing. How about dancing in church? Are we ready for dancing in church? Maybe not at Holly Hills. But again, this has to do with motivation, doesn't it? This is not about performance, this is not about my own ego, this is not about look at the awesomeness of what I'm doing, but it's a response to who God is.

Could I ask how the timbrel was used back in those days? It's percussion, so you use it to keep rhythm. I understand that. It just seems like we have drummers now that take it to a really big extreme and I'm just wondering what it was like in those days. Does anybody know? Yeah, so as far as we know in music history, and Kaylee is well educated in the back row so she can correct me if I'm wrong.

But in my studies so far, what I've found is that polyphonic music, as we know it today, where there's lots of notes that work together in harmony, is not something that we had at that point in time. And so you would have some kind of rhythm going on, and you'd have a melody going on. And that rhythm, when you see that they're rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, They celebrate and all of Israel comes out and everybody brings their instrument. And some people have a timbrel and some people have a horn and some people have lyres and harps and whatever else and they go around and they're dancing and they're celebrating that they've been able to rebuild the wall. and they're worshiping the Lord with that. So today in our culture, and this is the culture is what we do without thinking, right?

So last Sunday I had the snare drum out with the brushes, which I was pretty sure was going to cause somebody to be offended, okay? But I said, wait a minute, it's in the Scripture. If I'm worried about somebody getting offended, we can go to Scripture and God's Word can be the authority.

Right? Did I rock out? Were people Was there a mosh pit like we were at a rock concert today? No, that didn't happen. Was it a stumbling block? It might have been for something. If it is, I apologize. But the intent was to be musical. So when we talk about things like percussion in church, I have no problem with there being a drum set. I'm a multi-instrumentalist. I actually play the drums. But it needs to be musical.

If you can't focus on the Lord because of the music, then that's a problem. The focus here, though, is that they're using that instrument to glorify the Lord, to praise Him with whatever it is. My dad, when I was growing up, played the ocarina, which is a small little ceramic instrument. It's really kind of a shrill instrument on its higher range. And if it's played expertly, it's a really beautiful instrument. If you play it like I can, which is to say not at all, it's obnoxious. But if the purpose of the focus in the instrument is to praise the Lord, that's the first question that's here. We don't want to be distracting. We don't want to be obnoxious, right? What would the use of that be if when we come together as a body, everybody leaves with a fence. We've got multiple hands up here. Kaylee, are you correcting me?

No. Something that's important to note is that God was actually the one who created music, which means that if we have an issue with music in his church, that's not really a hit. Does that make sense? If we're offended by the instruments, we need to ask ourselves, where is the offense? Is the offense in ourselves? If I were to bring an electronic drum set in here so we could control the volume, because the acoustics in this room are interesting, and someone got offended by that, If we were to say that there's offense in ourselves, we'd have to ask, why am I offended and what's going on? Is there a growth opportunity for me in this?

Is that not to say there are distinctions to be made, though? I'm confused about the degrees that you're talking about. Like, if I'm offended because somebody's rocking out with drums and is totally- That's not what I said. OK, I'm trying to understand the distinction. I don't think I'm understanding the distinction. I'm talking about the instrument. if I bring in drums and you get offended because they're present here.

There are people that have, I've literally watched people come into this church and the organ starts and they leave. They're offended that the organ started because they wanted the drums. So now I've got somebody who's cranky because there's an organ and I've got somebody else who's cranky because there's not an organ. Which one of them is more spiritual? Well, the answer is they're offended. There's a growth opportunity. I've got two hands in the back there, Crystal. And it goes back again to motive. The motive is a key element.

Like you're saying, and I really appreciate you bringing that out because I feel that everyone, or in my past, in my walk, and being in a lot of different churches, there's been a ton of opinions and a lot of offense. They have since become a prideful thing, because that person is mainly focusing on their own perspective on something, and so therefore God's perspective is totally obliterated, like we've been saying. Yeah, and the thing is that, if I mention the name Kenny G., most of you probably in this room have had at least a moderate exposure to Kenny G., whether you liked it or not.

And he plays the saxophone, just in case that's not familiar to you. And then I've also heard the saxophone played in the church, and it's been edifying. But the motive was the differentiator, and the song's focus was the differentiator. As a drummer, I've played in praise and worship bands, playing the drums. And when I was young, I really wanted to rock out because everything that was cool was faster and louder.

And then I started playing with the church worship team, and Mike, who was the worship leader, said, no, you just need to play a basic rhythm. We're not here to rock out. We're here to help the congregation know when to clap. We're here to help the congregation know this is the timing and if their focus stops being on the Lord, we're doing it wrong. It didn't matter which instrument, whether it's the piano or the saxophone or the drums or trumpet or the timbrel or the lyre. It's the motive and it's the focus of what it is. So is everybody clear on that?

We're not talking about The psalmist isn't talking about rocking out, even though they would have never used that term. The psalmist is talking about praising the Lord with the instruments that you have. The next line, praise him with stringed instruments and pipe. It is a response to who He is and what He's done. Right, and the first verses of this psalm say specifically that. They're talking about wherever you are, praise Him based on His deeds and His greatness and who He is in a response to those things.

The instruments are the tools for that. And the next line, praising with loud cymbals. Now that's one, again, that's divisive, right? Is that rocking out? I don't know that that's the purpose of the loud cymbals. But why is the trumpet and why are loud cymbals in here? Why are those specifically in there?

Well, they're going to add emphasis, and they're also going to bring about, well, Crystal, you were going to say, you raised your hand, so go ahead. Well, I read through this song at the beginning, And when I jump into the people I know that understand the science behind the sound and the sound waves, this song has the totality of sound. Yeah, you're going to cover the whole dynamic range and the frequency range. So the wave of sound that is made is completely encompassed in these instruments in this song. Just like that, succinctly. I just thought that was good. Down to the breath. It's just one of those, wow. It's like God wrote this. Inspired by the Holy Spirit. So loud symbols and then resounding symbols.

But the idea is that in all of those things, if our heart is on the Lord, and we're coming together as a body, and you are coming with your voice or another instrument, and we're coming together focusing on the Lord, then we're not offended. Where's the offense in an abiding believer worshipping the Lord or praising Him? There's no offense in that. If we come together so that I can show you how awesome I am at anything, then we're focused on me, right? And that has no value.

So aren't the symbols and the resounding symbols, isn't that similar to an exclamation point? Yeah, they would behave musically much like an exclamation point. If the music's written correctly and you want to make some emphasis, it's a good way to do it. That would definitely be the exclamation point there. That's a good way to describe that. And then the last two things.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So if you're joining in, now if you're playing the trumpet, you're not going to be singing. It's very hard to sing and play the trumpet at the same time. It's like humming with your mouth open. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

So with the cymbals, and the stringed instruments, and the pipes, and timbrel, and celebration, basically, with the full range of sonic devices that were available, tools that were available, they were praising the Lord. And that was not Christian music. That was Jewish music.

But there's a principle there, inspired. That's why when we see this, we get the full range of what's there. We get the sense that the who's, what's, and why's are all mattering. What they're doing doesn't matter if who they're focused on is wrong. Imagine the psalmist could have summed this up simply saying, Nation of Israel, praise the Lord with whatever you have.

That's succinct, but he decided to be explicit, to help draw out attention that there's a responsibility as a believer, in this case an Old Testament believer, to be worshipping the Lord with the tools he's given you, to be praising him with those things. So Christian music, we've said, we've I think established very clearly it's about the motive or the lyrics.

Any questions on that? I want to make sure that before we move on we don't have obscurity or opinions still. I'm just going to say, I think it's interesting that that is the last psalm because it's kind of like the epilogue to help you to always remember that this is the goal of everything that precedes it. And that praise comes from a relationship. It comes from the inside out. And for us as believers, filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit can motivate us to do those things.

When I was young and I was wanting to rock out playing the drums, for example, when Mike reminded me, no, no, the focus is on the Lord, that allowed me to tone it down without being offended or hurt as a guy who wanted to rock out because I knew the purpose wasn't me. Now that being said, if I bring some drums in here, I want to invite everybody to come up and play. I'm getting smiles, no one's throwing rocks, that's good. Okay, let's keep going in the lesson.

Christian music is an industry, and I want to also point out I was a Christian music bookstore or Christian bookstore employee. I was the manager of the music department for a while, so this is an industry that I have very real and personal interactions with, and I've been to CBA, which is the Christian Booksellers Association, and they have all kinds of music things that are also part of that industry event. So that's some context for my background. From around the early 1990s into the 2000s, the Christian music industry was a thriving money-making machine. And where there's money, there's often compromise. Not always, but But certainly in the Christian music industry that was the case. Record labels were started, distribution systems were bolstered, and careers were made in singing and playing Christian music.

About 1995-96, Christian music started being about 5% of total music volume sales in the United States. And that got a lot of attention because 5% of billions of dollars is a whole lot of money. So the Christian market continued to grow. About that time, albums, which I'm sure folks in this room are less familiar with, but the albums like Jesus Freak by DC Talk came out and sold more records than anybody had conceived of before. It's like, wow, a Christian band can sell enough albums that they could reach platinum? you could actually sell hundreds of thousands of albums. Because before that, big sales were like 50,000 records.

So this was a big deal. But there was money to be made. And so at that point in time, the barrier to entry became that you claimed you were a Christian and someone would pay you money for your music. This was a very big barrier. You know, a lot of people claim Christianity.

There's a band today that some, some, there's a rock band named Chevelle that was on a Christian record label because the boys were Catholic. And they grew up in a Catholic home. And none of the songs were really about Jesus, but, you know, Christian band. Good boys. I guess. They've been interviewed since then to say that they were rather embarrassed because they didn't like being tied to that boat anchor of a label. But money was made and so somebody was happy somewhere.

But that didn't prevent really bad theology from getting churned into the Christian market. When I was the music department manager, people would come in all the time and they'd say, can you help me find a Christian band that sounds like X? And they'd name some secular artist.

Marilyn Manson was a common request. If you don't know who that is, just think about pretty much everything opposite of what most Christians want in their household. That's Marilyn Manson. They wanted the Christian version of that, which we could never quite provide. Even today, when I listen to artists, I'm like, nobody in the Christian realm has ever sounded quite like Marilyn Manson. But that's what people wanted. But if you could sound like pretty much anything else, apparently, because nobody ever matched that sound, you could go ahead and and get a record contract and we'd try to sell it somewhere in the music industry. It felt good, therefore it must have been good, right?

How many of you have heard of Jackie Velasquez? Back in the 90s she was really big, I'm not sure that she's still around anymore. When I moved to Texas, the second apartment we moved into, we had some neighbors that actually grew up with her. And so they didn't have as high an esteem for her as the Christian music market did. They're like, oh, her family's a bunch of fakes and whatever else.

But it was one of those things where she was on the stage. And she was selling a lot of records, so therefore she must be good because it felt good, right? How many of you are familiar with Sandy Patti? That's an older 80's artist, right? She got caught in an affair.

So that, because she's on the stage and the church put her on a pedestal, she did that and then she fell and then, oh no. There's tons, we could go through a list now of believers who've done terrible things as pastors or music people or whatever else, right?

Because there's no accountability. Last week when we talked about the parachurch groups, what was one of the big problems that they had? There's no accountability. artists who are basically in a gridlock, you know, and aren't solving the doctrine. So they watch them, it's a really big thing, they're listening on the radio, they're like, this is great, I feel so blessed, that person falls, they're like, wait, and then that maybe believer's faith is completely shaken, and they're like, well maybe, maybe I can just go a different way and it's still okay, Because the doctrine is not solid, because the basis is not good with it.

There are quite a few instances that we can look at where Someone was a Christian entertainer and there was an affair. Their marriage broke up. They came out of the closet and declared themselves gay. You kind of go down the list. There's a lot of that. And it's because we, as a culture and as Christians, have had this entertainment value assessment. And how does it make me feel? kind of assessment, and quite frequently there's no reality behind the person producing it. Whatever the person ends up doing doesn't necessarily mean that we're not producing the product. Right. Someone can be a believer and still sin. Everyone can be a believer and still sin.

That's better stated. Randy, I think it's also important to point out that feeling good is not I mean, if you can write the lyrics and the music so that you still feel good and it's consistent with scripture, that's good. That's doubly good. But if the only motive is feeling good... Yeah, that's a good... Feeling good is not evil. Judging something as being valid because you feel good is not the accurate way of judging.

You know, Amazing Grace, or How Great Thou Art, or some of the old classic hymns. I mean, I don't know about anybody else, but they make me feel good. And they're doctrinally sound. Well, I remember back in my day, Doobie Brother, another Christian band, and they did Jesus Was Just Alright with me. That was all right. Crystal? Stan makes a great point, but I think it's lost when we talk doctrine and feelings. I think often, just because of how the human brain works, they'll be like this thing. It suddenly becomes black and white. Only doctrine, only feelings.

Where there's been discussions in our family of when you truly understand doctrine, then you understand who the Lord is. When you understand who the Lord is, then he allows you to experience authentic emotion and a depth of feeling that you do not get when you listen to Christian music. And it's something that has to be matured in someone. And there's no comparison between true, godly feeling and that sensation that we all get.

I mean, there are certain- We have an eternal context for the emotions rather than the existential short-term qualifications. So fundamentally, discernment becomes a really critical element of what's going on there. I want to point out just a few more nuances I have here.

Artists such as Jars of Clay and Jennifer Knapp have been outspokenly theologically and socially liberal and promoted unbiblical things to an audience that respects their position and authority. Jars of Clay on Twitter, I followed them for a while until I wanted to throw up so I stopped following them. They promote all kinds of socially liberal things that I think you cannot defend from a biblical position.

And Jennifer Knapp came out of the closet in the last several years. Actually, her first album is based on the Book of Romans and lyrically it's phenomenal because Paul wrote most of it. And musically it's really good and actually if I were to listen to it today and could divorce in my mind the sin that she has promoted, it was a great album and it still is a great album. It's just unfortunate what her motives are at this point in time. But let's take a look at scripture, because that's way better than me, or Jennifer Knapp, or Jars of Clay.

Just as the author of Hebrew writes in this letter, that we should have discernment about what is good and evil, in Hebrews 5.14, but solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Maturity. Having had good food. So studying God's Word, growing in those things, being rooted in the Scriptures, being able to discern, this is good, this is evil. Songs are mnemonic devices, but what is memorized should be solid.

Alright, so let's talk about theology in Christian music. Let's examine a few songs, and I'm going to be For the sake of discussion, I'm going to be really neutral about these three songs that we have here. And we'll let folks discuss what they think the qualities are. Let's just take a few minutes. I won't read these out because it's quite a bit of reading to listen to.

But take a moment and read these songs. Absalom, Absalom is about David's son from the voice of David. Creating Me a Clean Heart is a psalm. And the Ballad of Gideon is a narrative written about Gideon. So take a few moments and read those. All right, so who thinks Absalom Absalom is or is not a Christian song? It is a Christian song.

Anybody disagree with that? How about if we were to rephrase that? Who thinks this was a song written by a Christian who had studied the story of David. Alright, I'm getting head shakes, but my hand raises. So, how about Creating Me a Clean Heart? This is a psalm, so how do we feel about this one? Is this a Christian psalm? It seems like you could lose your salvation. This is not dispensationally correct. That is, it is a psalm that if said by the church-age believer, asks for things or pleads for things that are just simply not positionally true. And how about the Ballad of Gideon? Is this a Christian song?

These are a bit of loaded questions, right? So the truth of the matter is that the author of Absalom, Absalom, is a believer and he's trying to put himself in the shoes of David who's mourning the loss of his son, Absalom. But he takes artistic license, and so maybe in that artistic license there's some statements that you wouldn't choose to make as a believer with what you know now. But the author of the psalm felt like that was the case. But we want to have discernment in that.

Shouldn't it be the focus too? There's no focus about Christ or God, it's mostly about the Son. Well, no, because we talked about that earlier. Some songs are directed for teaching to other brothers and sisters in Christ. So the focus doesn't necessarily have to be I don't see the motivation, I don't see what he's teaching.

Okay, well in this case he's talking about the lament of bad parenting, right, if I were to summarize that, okay? And so that might be an interesting observation. Crystal? The Absalom one, clearly, at the end when David is looking out, he's grieved because of his son. You can throw a hole under that parent's side and you can see that moment of a father who has lost his son.

It's powerful enough. Like just that moment as a parent, if you lose a child, especially a child who just chooses just as if, like after he was an adult man, when he started doing adult things, and he made his choices, the reality is David and his father still loved him knowing, knowing all of it, that there's a kingdom, that there's, you know, he appears to be a daughter, like it was recorded what this So it's sad that they would tweak it to this thing of parenting from the actual... Well, I made that summary, but yeah. No, I mean, you did a great job. It's just that there's this moment that you can just look at that heart of even knowing everything. The father's love for his son. But the direction of it, and the personification that's there, is an interesting observation. It's artistically interesting.

I'm not sure that I would, well I'm certain I wouldn't lead the congregation in it, right? But it's a song where the focus tends to be on a biblical narrative and a story that took place and tried to explore the mind of David who was the participant in it. But the theology isn't necessarily accurate in every way and there's artistic license taken. So what do we need to have when we look at this song? Discernment. to know what's going on here, and to very carefully consider the lyrics that are being here, because if we take them in, and we start taking in this author's perspective, we could derive some interesting theology. And by interesting, I mean errant. And the creating me a clean heart is from the Psalms. It is from the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit was gifted to Saul. He ran with the prophets, right? Saul was indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And then the Holy Spirit came out of Saul. In the Old Testament, that was a thing. In the New Testament, that's not a thing. In the New Testament, does the Spirit leave us? Once we're saved, we're always saved, right?

So, I have sung Create in Me a Clean Heart many times leading the congregation in past churches, not this one, without the discernment or understanding, wow, I'm really talking about something that can't even happen. But I was charismatic and undereducated, so.

It was one of those emotionally stirring songs. We'll do that one towards the end of the service. And then the Ballad of Gideon. So this one here is kind of fun. But the Ballad of Gideon is very artistic. And it adds lots of nuance that is maybe not inspired by the scripture. But you see this engaging. But you could remember a story from it, couldn't you? But again, in all three of these cases, discernment is critical. This is a psalm that created me a clean heart. It's a psalm. It's scripture put to music. That's a valuable thing for us to have awareness of and learn, and if you can use a psalm to memorize scripture, that's not a bad thing.

But you need to make sure that you understand that you're seated with Christ and the heavenlies, and there's no chance that the Holy Spirit is going to lead. You might still enjoy the Ballad of Gideon, but you would want to make sure that you had an awareness of the nuances that were maybe extra-biblical, right? But isn't that all summed up in the fact that it's a ballad? Well, it is a ballad, so yeah, you've got to know there's artistic license.

We sort of went over the role of music in the church a little earlier, but at the top of page four is liberty, and we're out of time now. Can Christians write and perform and listen to music that is not just about the Bible? And the answer to that is yes, we have liberty to do those things.

Legalism on this topic is divided churches and brothers in Christ. I know this because I harped on my brother constantly when he was a young boy because I wanted him to be more righteous and I wanted him to listen to only Christian music. While I was dating Jessica, I pushed her aggressively, she's my wife now so she's very patient, I pushed her very aggressively to get rid of all of her secular CDs. because they were not righteous enough. And I'm kind of ashamed of that now, just so you know. But that kind of legalism is not of the Spirit, right?

But we want to consider what we're taking in. If we take a look at 1 Corinthians 3, 1 through 3, Paul urges us to set our minds on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenly. And Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, whatever is good, set our mind on those things. And that's my summary, right? But we need to have an awareness of what we're taking in. There may be a liberty there. We may have an awareness of what we're churning out.

I write songs as I have time, which the older I get seems to be less time, but I do try to write songs. But I have to be considerate of what is the value of those songs. The older I get, the more songs I write are just worship songs. And that's just me. There's no judgment on someone who would write some other kinds of songs.

The last section here is about the role of music in the church for edification of the saints, again talking about teaching one another and encouraging one another and coming alongside. Meditation. If we're supposed to meditate on the Word, we can use songs to memorize the scriptures and then run through those things and consider the truths, either in comparison to our life experiences or just for our own growth and edification. And then praise and worship.

Obviously something here at Holly Hills, when you come Sunday mornings, you expect that at the 10-15 service there will be music and we will sing together as a congregation. And so at Holly Hills, because we're concerned about the doctrine and we want to have discernment, we will sometimes change the lyrics of songs or write whole new verses. Sometimes you'll see on the overhead, verse X Which is always fun to me, because it makes me think of the X-Men for whatever reason. But you'll see verse X, and verse X will be something that is either written by somebody here at Holly Hills or was in a hymnal, but it wasn't in our hymnal. Or we changed the words enough that we decided, let's finesse that. Many of you are probably familiar with Jesus Paid It All, the song we've sung here at church a few times. says Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Which is not true. We don't owe Jesus anything. He bought us fair and square. There's no debt. Roy? When that song was written though, it had an entirely different meaning. It meant that everything that I have is from you, Lord.

Sure, but we don't want to confuse people. I don't, but today you don't get that meaning. Just in the defense of the author, they probably wrote that in all sincerity and love. Sure. Sincerity is nice, but we want to... No, I mean in the right way as well. They had the right point. They had the truth behind it.

But today the meaning is different than when it was written. So we need to change it today. The point is we want to make sure that what we're singing is in alignment with the teaching of true doctrine so that there's not ambiguity. We changed it to His grace and love to show. That way we can have no ambiguity in the part of those who are singing and participating. And if you've memorized that in your head, then that's another part of grace being emphasized.

Alright, we're done. People are waiting to get in. Let's close in prayer real quick. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just continue to remind us through the scriptures of a life focused in praise and worship and having discernment about the things that we take in and that we put out, whether they're musical or otherwise. We thank you for the opportunity to come together and discuss these things in light of the Scriptures, in light of who we are in you. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.