170: Matt Mays on the Local Church

Christ’s Kingship and the Necessity of the Local Church

To the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it. The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy.

Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Well, it's been a while, Matt.

Absolutely. Yeah, how long has it been since we've had the opportunity to talk? I'd say roughly eight seconds, if I had to guess. Right, about the time it takes to ride a bull, so there you go. Goodness, when is this coming out?

November 11th, and so hopefully by that time, man, it has been a hot year, hasn't it? Hopefully by, we haven't even had a frost yet. Usually by this time, we get some sort of frost, but man, it hasn't, it's been warm, but maybe folks are tuning in today, and they're like, what's he talking about?

It's cold. That's because we're still recording this one in October, so welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I am your host, Allen Nelson, and I'm one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church, and we're in central Arkansas, the big metropolis of Perryville, some 1 ,300 people, and with me is the one and only Matt Mays, which I'm sure you're not the only Matt Mays that's ever lived.

I can't imagine. I cannot imagine that that's true. You know, what's funny is in my life, in the last couple of years, the Lord has brought a Maddie May, that's the young lady who's now, by the time people listen to this one, who is now married to my son, and now I'm Matt Mays, so sometimes I find myself tripping up on those, so there it is.

That's what happens when you get old. All right, brother, we're gonna jump in because we talked about last time reformed theology, and a lot of times people associate with reformed theology the acronym TULIP, which is great.

Reformed Theology and the Doctrine of the Church

It's helpful, so T, total depravity. We believe men are sinful from head to toe, men and women and boys and girls, born guilty and Adam, and then as soon as they're able, choosing to sin, so totally depraved, not as sinful as they could be, but sinful in every capacity, and then U is unmerited favor, that is before the foundation of the world, God chose a people, a specific people, not just whoever he looked down in time, say, well, you know, because that's making God learn something, that is actually minimizing God, and it's actually blasphemous if it's pushed hard enough.

No, God chose a select people, an individual people chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world passing over others, and then you have the L, limited atonement, Christ came, gave his life as a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world, but a particular focus and efficient sacrifice for the sins of his people to actually save.

He will, Matthew 121 says, save his people from their sins. I is irresistible grace, whereby in time, the Holy Spirit, as you talked about in last episode, wakes us up, brings us to life, regenerates us so that we can come to Christ, not kicking and screaming, but like that old Charles Wesley song, the prison door is open, the lights come on, my chains fell off, I'm free, baby, and I'm running to the Lord Jesus Christ as my only suitable and all-sufficient savior, and then you have the P, which is perseverance of the saints, which means that those chosen from eternity past, they're gonna make it to heaven.

When they are in Christ and come to Christ in time, they're never gonna fall away, and God's gonna persevere them through means, but also in holiness. So that's just an overview, but where I wanna shift now is like you get to that, and a lot of people stop there, but I think one of the most beautiful things about Reformed theology, once you put all of that together, is at least an underrated aspect of it, is the doctrine of the church.

What do you think about that? I 100 agree. Definitely most overlooked or neglected even. And you kind of hit on that at the end of last episode. You know, you're like, hey, find you, I don't remember, did you say Bible believe in church?

I did, yeah. Okay, because that's how the podcast starts with the late Brother David Miller, finding a good Bible believe in church, and why did you say that? Well, because that's the critical point, and I know every church would affirm that they believe the Bible, but I think that as we discussed then, and as we'll discuss now, I think there's a difference between believing things about the Bible and believing what the Bible teaches.

Yeah. I think that is the most crucial point. Yeah, yeah. You know, here's a crazy thing about, you know, you and I got connected. It was, man, I don't remember what month, was it like March or something like that?

I don't remember. It was earlier in the semester, I think. I wanna say it might have even been a little bit earlier than that, but I don't remember. It was pretty early on. I could probably look back and see.

Yeah. It was pretty early on. So pretty early on, we got connected. And I say we got connected because I work in admissions at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, and Matt is a student there. And so, you know, that's how I got to meet you.

And then it was like a few months, well, several months later, but it was like this summer, all of a sudden God's doing some thing in your guys' life. And it's like, I actually think we're gonna be moving close to you because of your job.

And it was like, are you serious? And now look, I'm not trying to be, this is nothing against you guys. Just, I'll say this kind of openly publicly, but after you've been pastor for a long time, and I've been in ministry now a little over 20 years, you just kind of get burnout on things.

And sometimes you just temper your expectations. So you told me, you know, you're like, hey, we're thinking about, we're gonna be moving because of the job. And like, my expectations were tempered because I'm like, this would be amazing.

We've been praying for God to send us a godly family, but I didn't know what this was gonna look like. So you moved, you moved to the Dardanelle area and not quite Dardanelle, but you know, for, I mean, no one listened.

It's a Dardanelle address. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. So, but then we got to actually meet you guys face to face. I mean, I'd already met you, but you got to meet our church. And I just wanna, I just thought we would kind of talk in this episode of like, the importance of the church and it's like, Providence Baptist Church is not a perfect church and we have room to grow.

And there are areas that, you know, that we need to grow, but I just have an opportunity in this episode to kind of talk about like, okay, you're an outsider who is seeing things. So we've walked through a serious reformation at our church in the last several years, but you're someone that's got to come in and not gone through those things.

You didn't see what we were like before. You just see what we're like now. And it's kind of neat to get a perspective like yours. And so I just wanna talk about, you know, like the beauty of the church, the importance of the church in general, but also like, what is it that you guys feel like drew you to Providence?

And what have you seen? What do you like? What do you not like? What are areas you see maybe that you think we can continue to grow in? So that's kind of what I wanna talk about today. Okay. So I don't know where to start.

I guess we'll start in August, you guys visited. Is that right? That was the first weekend of August. Yes, sir, it was. So tell me about your first impression. Okay. So, well, I think before we get to the getting there, I think like the conversation we had leading up to that, which was, you know, to a lot of people, and even a little bit to me would be odd.

But as you told me, and as I've come to understand, it's pretty normal for the church. But the way that we talked about us even coming up here, cause we came up here to look at houses first off. And of course, I said, you know, we're coming to church on Sunday.

But we came up, I believe we came up Friday morning of that weekend, I think. And what we did was, prior to that, I told you asked me where we were gonna stay. And I told you, we were gonna rent an Airbnb or something.

And you said, that would be fine if you wanna do that. But we have a guy in our church, he leads us in worship, and he has a camper. And you can come stay in the camper. To which I replied to you, I have four children.

They're coming with me. And you said, he has six children. And you're like, that's just what we do. And you said, you told me to talk to my wife about it. And so I did. At first I was like, no, we're just, you know, I don't wanna put anybody out.

We're gonna go, it wasn't because I was weirded out. It's just, I didn't wanna put anybody out. So we looked at Airbnbs, I realized they're expensive and we didn't have any money. So I called you back and I said, hey, were you serious about that?

And you sent me his number. Or you told him, you told me he was gonna call me. That was Gunner, I'm sure everybody, a lot of people are familiar with Gunner. But he called me and we had a conversation.

And he was like, yeah, you can stay in our camper or you can stay in this house that my dad owns and on the river. And I was like, okay, that sounds awesome. And I was kind of hoping he wasn't applying for me to pay for it because I didn't have any money.

And he wasn't. He wanted me to stay for free. I think that's important because I think it leads into a lot of what we're gonna talk about in a minute. But we, anyway, we came up Friday. We stayed in the house.

And then along with that, it was, they wanted to have supper with us on the first night. People I'd never met before. And like I said, I'd known you only by a phone call and text messages and things like that, not personally.

And so we came up Friday and we saw some houses and then we went and ate supper at what would have been a lot of people, a stranger's house. And I met you in person. I met your wife. I met some of your children.

I met Pastor Jacob and his wife and I think his two children and then Gunner and his wife and their children. And all of our kids disappeared. And we all talked for several hours. And then come Sunday, we were in church together.

And I realized that the people that were there on Friday evening, well, actually, I think we also met on Saturday again, which is at your son's engagement party. Engagement, that's right, that's right.

The McChesneys were there and lots of people, yeah. Yeah, met the McChesneys on that Saturday and a few other people. And then Sunday, I got to come to church and it was like people there already knew me and I felt like I already knew these people.

And of course, I think everybody says that about a church, but that's how we led up to that point of coming on Sunday morning to church the first time. Yeah, I just was looking back on our text message.

February 23rd is when I first texted you. Gotcha. Yeah, so you were right, a little bit before March. So, all right, well, the Lord moved you guys with the business or with the job and all that. And so you could be honest, you could tell me, I mean, you can be just transparent, but like you guys wind up, cause you have to choose, like, are you gonna live a little closer to your job or a little closer to church?

You wind up living a little closer to your job. Was there ever any thought like, well, maybe we should just find a little, a church maybe closer, or like, what were y 'all thinking in that whole transition there?

Well, so we picked out, we looked at a few houses, we picked them out ahead of time, cause I guess you have to do all that stuff with real estate agents. I'm not an expert in any of that, but you had to pick them out ahead of time and she showed them to us.

And when we picked one out that we did end up buying, at the time we picked it out because it was the only one that we could afford that was not in town. And our kids had never lived in town, so that was a big part of it.

So at that point in time, prior to us coming up here, I won't pretend like it wasn't a consideration, but the thing is, I'd already looked, of course, you never know until you're somewhere because I know like at my prior church in Maranatha, it wasn't on a lot of the other list of like the 1689 or like reformed Baptist churches or anything like that, but there it was anyway.

So I wasn't certain that that wasn't the case here, but what I did know is that your church, now our church, I knew about where it stood. And so every house I looked at, I did a correlation because I had to be so close to my job within a certain distance for them to bring me up here.

But I also would do, I would pull up Google Maps every time and I would look between the house that we looked at and Walmart in Dardanelle or Russellville, and then the house that we were looking at and Providence in Perryville, and also to Conway because the seminary.

But that was, so at that point in time, yes, we considered it. But after meeting y 'all for the first time and then coming to church that first time, it was, I had no doubt we'd look anywhere else. So that was pretty well it.

Confessional Conviction in Church Practice

What do you think about like, is there the marriage of a confessional church and reformed theology like has, you know what I'm saying? Like there's a difference between, and because I've been in several different places and there's a difference between a church that has some people who hold a reformed theology.

And then there's a difference between being in a church that has maybe a reformed pastor. Like for a long time, we were a church that had a reformed pastor, but we weren't a reformed church. But now like all that's kind of syncing up.

It's all been kind of coalescing into this, all right, we are a reformed Baptist church. Has that stood out to you any? I mean, as an outsider coming in, does that, I mean, are we weirdos? Are we a cult?

Like what have you seen with all that that's either encouraged you or maybe left you with some questions or just I'm throwing all that out there. That's kind of a big open-ended question. Well, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

There is a difference. I think there's a, it's kind of like, I'm trying to think of an analogy, but it's gonna fail me if I try, but it definitely makes a difference between, like you mentioned a church who has a reformed pastor or a church that has some reformed people in it or versus a church that is holding to a confession.

I think there can even be a difference between a church that's holding to a confession on paper and one that is actually adhering to it in practice. And I think that's probably the biggest difference.

And I think to the outside world, for sure it's gonna look different, but that's one of the big things for me that sold me on Providence. Not because y 'all read the 1689 in front of the church, not because you followed a certain particular set of liturgy and all that stuff is true, but because of the way that it came out and the way that you worshiped and the way that you fellowshiped and the way that you spoke and the way that people acted towards one another.

I think that's probably the difference. You know, that was what, you could know, you could sense, I hate to use that because of what people use it for, but you could sense a difference and you could feel a difference.

You know, and you know, of course, logically, you know there's a difference, but no, I think maybe to the outside world, you can make the jokes about the cult things. I mean, there are people who, there are several people there who drive white vans, have lots of kids, I'm just saying.

But no, there's a, it's a blessing, man. I think that's the big thing about it is that it's genuine, it feels genuine. That's probably a good word for it. You know, I've thought about this and I just, I don't know what you would say really, but it's like somebody sits in a worship service of another church and they probably think, well, come on, I mean, is it really that different at Providence?

Worship That Is Shaped by Theology

Like what is it that's different about the worship at Providence versus the worship over here? I mean, come on, is it, can it really be that different? And what, like, what would you say if somebody was asking you?

You know, let's say they're just kind of going to that typical Baptist church and again, I'm not trying to run anybody down. Look, let me say this, a part of this, and this was where I was long before I came here, but early in my Christian walk, I was in a place where I was like, I just didn't know.

You know, I've used this analogy before, it's a terrible analogy, but just go with it. Suppose you have a group of islands and it's going to get crazy, so just buckle up and hold on. The only food to eat on these islands is McDonald's.

So they've got McDonald's on all these islands. It's all, you can eat nothing else but McDonald's, right? So it's, I get it, crazy. But if you visit there and you begin to ask the people, are you healthy?

What are they going to say? Well, they're going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're healthy. I was like, what do you guys got that we don't got? Yeah, we got the Big Macs and the fries and the soft drinks, like the Cokes.

We got all this, of course we're healthy. Well, the problem is they just don't know. They don't know. It's all they've known is McDonald's their whole life. And so they don't have any kind of idea of what life is like outside of that.

And so when you come to like the quote unquote, typical Baptist church, I'm talking about like the typical kind of conservative Baptist church, like that's all they know. And so you're like, are you healthy?

Is your worship healthy? And they're like, yeah. Well, it's all they know. And so I guess that's, so that's, so I want to be kind to that, but the question I'm asking you then is like, but if they said to you, well, Matt, like, come on, Matt, like, can it be really that different problem?

Like how do you respond to that? Well, I mean, the way I'd like to respond is try. I mean, I hate to, that sounds almost pragmatic, but I'd say try because yeah, it is that different. I mean, I'll say one of the biggest things about our church that you don't get, this is not even necessarily, I think it's a fruit of both reformed theology and confessionalism and things like that.

But I think the biggest practical thing that'll stand out to you the most is like people singing, people actually singing praises to their Lord. And of course, I think that theology shines through in the songs that we sing and then the things that we say and the things that are preached by you and Pastor Jacob and things like that.

But I think, yeah, it is that different. If you're gonna use your McDonald's analogy, it's like, is there a difference between McDonald's and a state? I mean, absolutely. You know, and I'm not saying, again, you said before, I'm not saying it's the perfect church or anything like that, but I'm saying there's a difference.

And it's not, I'll be honest with you, like you don't wanna give all credit to the people. I think people are definitely for sure the big part of it, but it's by the grace of God. And I think you can tell, the people will tell you that.

You know, I think that's a big part of it. It's like, again, like we talked about in our last conversation, the centerpiece is God and we're there to worship Him. I think that shows through in all the aspects.

So yes, I would say, I'd like to tell them to try it, but I'd say, yes, it absolutely is that different. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, to God be the glory, brother. And it's been, and what's interesting for you is like, you know, like with Gunnar and even with Jacob, Pastor Jacob, and there's a handful of folks, they could give testimonies like, it's not always been that way, you know.

Life Together in a Local Church

But here you've got, you're coming in and the Turnages and the McChesneys and the Cody family, like there's several families over the last couple of years. And it's like, this is all they've seen. And that really encourages me as a pastor that they didn't have to know some of the hardships before.

And then there's some things like, like, you know, we wanna continue to grow. We always wanna be examining ourselves by the Word of God. We don't have deacons right now, we wanna grow in that. But it's so encouraging, you know, to see, it's like, people are getting it.

And one of the things that I wanna tie this back to is like, if your Reformed theology doesn't lead you to seeing the beauty and the importance and the centrality of the local church, then I don't think you really understand Reformed theology.

Amen. So anything else like, you know, positive, negative, anything, any holes, you wanna mention anything that you're like, you know, hey, this is, you know, it's just, hey, it's open book here, brother, Providence.

Go ahead. Well, man, I wanna be honest, first of all, to say that like, look, even the church that I came from was a great and faithful church, you know. Amen, amen. The issue with that church was that I no longer lived there.

You know, the reason it's, and that's been a blessing to me is that, you know, I didn't leave a church in grievance and hoping to find something better. You know, I just, I knew that, I knew the importance of a solid local church and a church that had men who faithfully preached the Word and that had a real membership and things like that.

I knew the importance of that and I knew myself and my family, we needed that. And so like, you know, you could nitpick and find things that you would like to do different or whatever, you know, but I've found that to be not that helpful, I'll be honest with you.

I think now, I think if there's a serious issue, we ought to address it, you know, we ought to stand up for it and we ought to fight if necessary. But I don't think that, I don't think it's super helpful to nitpick every single aspect and think, oh, if I was in charge, I would do this better or I would do this different, because I think that's, for one, that's prideful in myself if I was doing this.

I try not to even look at the church like that. Are you saying our sermons are too long? No, I think our sermons are too short, we've got to preach longer. Oh, watch it now. I was trying some reverse psychology on you, no, I'm just kidding.

Don't threaten me with a good time. No, man, I think that I was, well, like I said, to be fair, I came from a solid church and we also had long sermons. So that's what my children and myself and my wife, we got accustomed to was long sermons.

And I think it takes a long time to truly exposit the word and to divide it rightly to your people. So I think that's honestly one of the pros. I would say if there's a con, if you want me to give a con, I would say the con is A, I live too far from the church and B, we should meet more often.

I don't know how else to say it that way, but that's a fault of mine, not a fault of the church. I love, and you know this, cause you've been here, but not everybody is necessarily bought in on so-called life together, but a lot have.

And it's really encouraging that your church family becomes like, oh, those aren't just my Sunday people. And it's not just my Sunday and Wednesday people. It's like, those are my people. Like if I need help, I know they're gonna be there for me.

If I need prayer, if I need rebuke, if I need counsel, if I just need fellowship, and it's like, it's crazy. No, I don't expect everyone to be this way cause I get it. But like for me, like 99%, I think, I don't know, of the people I hang out with, now I do work at the seminary one day a week, so maybe that's too high, but a large percentage of the people that I'm just around all the time are my church family.

And I'm like, I'm not sad about that. I'm happy, actually living out the one another's as the body, and it's so encouraging. And for a church, like it's been the Lord. Like there's no explanation for what's going on here at our church other than God's kindness and His sovereign grace.

I mean, because none of us, I'm not trying to be rude to anybody, but none of us are super intelligent. None of us have all that kind of charismatic type personality. We're all probably a little weird in one way or another, but God has just pulled us together and it's been an amazing thing.

He's united the weirdos. Yeah, yeah, amen. So let me ask you this and we kind of wrap it up here in just a second, but like, somebody's listened to this and they're like, okay, I need to get more serious.

What to Look for in a Local Church

What am I even really looking for in a church? So like maybe give them like your top three thoughts of what they should be thinking about in a church. Okay, can I give a story first? Yeah, of course. Okay, so prior to my last church or before we went and started going to my last church, we were attending church and I was wanting to be serious about everything and the Lord was working in my life and there happened to be a ballot in Arkansas to get abortion on the ballot.

They were gonna post up a little stand and have people sign the petition to get it on the ballot for getting abortion on the ballot for Arkansas. This is Howard County, Arkansas. I like Perry County, not a lot of difference there.

And so anyway, they're gonna meet at the courthouse and so I took myself and my boys and little did I know that the person who staging the protest of these petitions was none other than Pastor Bruce Short and somebody I knew from my childhood, but I hadn't seen in a long time and not to hark him too much to the last conversation, but what I knew about him essentially was that he was the Calvinist guy and so people didn't hang out with him as much anymore and things like that.

But anyway, so I go on the street, my boys and I, and at this point, I'm already reformed leaning, it's hard to call myself reformed because of how little I knew. Anyway, so my boys and I went to this protest, we were handed signs, I had people yell at me a couple of times and things like that and that was all well and good, but in the midst of that, I saw a man who was in his 70s, who was for one out on the streets, and this is like, I don't know, maybe you can give a better idea on time frame, I don't know when they were doing this, it was hot, I can tell you that, it was hot outside.

So he's out there and he went and bought us all pizza and brought it to those of us who were out there and then he said, he asked me one more time if anybody wanted it and I said, no. He said, well, I've got to go to the jails to do my gospel presentation.

And he said, I'm fixing to leave. He said, y 'all just hang out until they're gone. I said, okay. And he walked off. I mean, I was the closest one to the people in the booth and I knew then that I thought to myself, he's fixing to go take the pizza to those people in that booth and sure enough, that's exactly what he did.

And so he did and I thought to myself, he is genuine. The real deal. He's the real deal. And that day, I came home and told my wife, I said, if we go anywhere else, it's gonna be Mary Nathan Baptist Church.

And I was like, and then three weeks later in God's providence, that's where we were. But I say that to say that one of the big three, he said, give me your big three. One of the big three is I think being genuine, the real deal.

Faithful Pastors and Genuine Christian Character

Are the people there, especially, I'm not trying to put too much on you and Pastor Jacob, but especially those who are the overseers, the elders, are they genuine? Are they sold out and do they rightly preach the word and do they do so in an unapologetic but also loving manner?

And I think that, of course, in our church, I 100 believe that to be true. So that would be probably my number one is look at those and it matters the same in the congregation, those who are members of that church, the same way.

But I think that, are they serious about the word? Specifically for point number one, are they serious about the word? Do they preach it rightly and unapologetically but also in love? And I think that would be number one.

Meaningful Membership and Mutual Accountability

I think number two, I would say, and probably, I hate to rank them because I'd have a bunch to list out, but I want to give three. So you're talking about looking for a church, what are you looking for?

I think membership, how membership is handled is a big thing. I think that if you, because I'm sure you grew up similarly and I'm not hating on any of the folks that didn't know better, but membership used to be that you would walk forward at the end of the service and you would say, hey, I want to join.

And they'd ask you, you've been saved and baptized? And you'd say, heck yeah. They were like, all right, sign, put you in. Yay or nay, that'd be the best, the most you could hope for as far as, I don't want to say scrutiny, but maybe give me a better word.

What would you think? Accountability, maybe? Yeah, sure. Yeah, and it'd just be a vote of confidence over people who might've known you for a couple of weeks. And a small town, they might've known you for a long time, but either way, it's not a lot of weight to that.

Whereas I think when you have church membership that means something, you kind of want to make sure that the people, for one, the people that are, the sheep that are coming into your folder are sheep and not goats.

So as best you can, of course, the Lord knows the heart and I fully understand that, but you're called to shepherd the flock. So as someone coming in to a church, you want to look at how they view membership.

And I know it could be, go ahead, I'm sorry. No, no, you said they shouldn't, you don't want to be hard on people that don't know any better. But on another hand, I want to say, but they should know better.

We should know better. We've got to take ownership of that. The Bible is not obscure about the importance of membership. Absolutely, absolutely. Oh yeah, and so just as someone coming in, if you're looking, just see how they view membership.

If they view it as just a pledge where you just say some words and do a thing and come in, it's probably going to tell you a lot more than what you think it would. It's going to tell you a lot about how they view, maybe even how they view salvation probably, because it could be that that's how they view salvation.

Say some words and do a thing, and now you're safe, you know? But at the very least, it could point to some issues. And I think that you want, one of the, I'll say it like this too. I was in the leadership team at my last church, and we talked a little bit about church membership one time.

And I said, one of the biggest benefits about membership that I think people take for granted is accountability. And not just me for you, like me holding you accountable, as you mentioned before about the confession and things like that, to be able to hold you accountable when you're preaching, things like that.

But also for other people to hold me accountable, because I need that. I don't need a group full of yes-men. I want somebody to hold me accountable, because I'm going to stand before God like everybody else is.

Worship, the Ordinances, and Singing to God

So I think that's a big thing, membership. And probably third, I'd say, is worship. And when I say worship, I understand that the whole service is worship. But I mentioned preaching and how it's preached in the first, and I think that's a big part of it too.

But also what is, just for an example, songs. What songs are you singing? Are you singing songs that are about, could you replace Christ or God in a song with your name and it make perfect sense? Because if that's true in every song, now that, I mean, that's not hard, fast.

That's probably not a really good rule, because there are some songs where I understand language-wise, it could still technically make sense. But I'm talking about like, if you replace yourself, put your name in a song where it's exalting God and Christ in a worthy manner, it's not going to make any sense, because you're not worthy to be exalted.

So if your song is Jesus as your boyfriend, or Jesus as your best pal, and Jesus is your friend, he's a friend, I understand that, that's true. But when we're trying to exalt Christ and we're trying to worship God, I think that our songs matter.