God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. That's what you just heard in Farsi from our friend Mo. Mo is bringing Desiring God resources to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Incredible work. You will want to hear the story in just a minute, but first we get to today's question here on this Wednesday.

What is a good musical worship experience? That's today's question from a listener to the podcast by the name of Jeff. Hello, Pastor John. I know many Christians speak of a good worship experience as one associated with an emotional response, and I have several relatives that will say a good worship experience is tied to the quality of the music, how well the musicians sing and performed on stage, and they will defend popular Christian worship bands who hold to a theology that's a little bit weak, but defend the songs because of the personal emotional high that they cause.

As a result, my relatives will say things like the worship experience was "very powerful." We even know of a local church that doesn't allow children in the singing portion because it distracts from the worship experience. So my question for you, Pastor John, is this. What makes for a good musical worship experience?

I put that question to Pastor John in Nashville. Here he is. Well, not taking the kids out, Noel and I wrote an article in our first year or two at Bethlehem making the case that we will not have a children's church, but the children will be in worship services after age, I don't know what we chose, three, something like that.

And my argument was where else will a three, four, five, six, seven year old boy, say boy, learn what the heart of a mature man toward God is if he doesn't see his dad sing, if he doesn't see his dad pray, if he doesn't see his dad bow down in holy reverence.

And so there's so much more going on in a good experience of worship. So the other thing that came to my mind when I heard that question was that the word experience is viewed negatively because it's got connotations of empty emotionalism. And all that was just an experience. But the word experience in English is necessary.

I mean, it's a good word. Worship is an experience. It is. And it needs to be fleshed out as what kind of experience it is. And what makes it good is that there is truth and there is response to that truth in understanding. And there is worth and beauty and greatness.

And there is response to that in affections. Now, that little summary there came from a sentence from Jonathan Edwards. So Jonathan Edwards says, God glorifies himself in the world in two ways. He glorifies himself by his glory being seen, meaning known, understood. And his glory being delighted in. He who sees God's glory does not glorify him so much as he who also delights in that glory.

Now, when I read that sentence, I thought, "He's so absolutely right." And you heard me say yesterday, God will not be half glorified, meaning he doesn't want a doctrinally straight church with zero experience of affections. And he doesn't want a church with all over the top emotions and affections and almost no rich understanding of the nature of God and what he's done in the world.

And so what I'm looking for in a good experience of worship is, is there richness of truth here, truth in the welcome, truth in the prayers, truth in the preaching, truth in the singing and the lyrics of the song. He's just permeated with the Bible truth that is loved in this church.

And do these people give some evidence it makes a difference? Like it touches anybody. Does anybody feel anything here? Because if this church is totally blank, I mean, it is emotionless. I'm thinking God is not prized here. God is not valued here. God is not cherished here. God is not enjoyed here.

That's just not worship. I don't care how true the doctrine is or how straight the preaching is. So those are just massively crucial things, I think, for worship to be a good experience. Now, all of that, I think, presumes, or maybe I shouldn't presume it, that the chief actors in worship are the congregation.

This conference is all about how you lead in order to make that happen, but it's the congregation singing or praying or confessing or reciting. The congregation is the worshiping body with the help of people who are musicians or leaders from the front, which implies, now, what would that be?

What would the good leadership be to make that happen so that the people are singing, the people are praying, the people are reciting, the people are confessing authentically from the heart? And I wrote down the leader will not… I used the term "undistracting excellence" is needed from the leaders.

Undistracting, you don't get in the way. So not shoddy, because that's going to distract. You make mistakes, people are going to be jarred and won't be able to keep focusing. Not ostentatious. That means you're too good and you're showing off on the piano or whatever instrument you're playing. Not entertaining, not calling attention to themselves.

I mean, the tension in this conference is significant, isn't it? This is a largely performance-oriented conference. Even though you're singing a lot, these are remarkable things going on up here, and they could easily intimidate a lot of pastors that they can't do anything like that. And I know Keith and Kristen don't want that to happen to any pastor in the room.

They want a 30-person church with lay leadership and no education in music to be powerful in connecting with God on Sunday morning, which is very possible. So not calling attention to themselves. And then maybe lastly, I wrote a list of things that I think, in a good experience, you'd look for in the music.

One, it's singable. It's singable by men. Men, M-E-N. Men. Because I was just talking with another remarkable music theoretician back there over lunch, and he was talking about the changes of the last 30 years. And one of the changes, he said, is that the register has gone up. So then I would say, in our service at home, too often, I have to say, I think I look at people, "The men just dropped out.

Did you know, did anybody notice no men are singing right now? Or they shift to a lower octave, and that sounds weird." I was like, "They were doing just great right here, then..." "What just happened?" So the scope of singability, and I actually think it's crucial that the men sing.

It's almost a given that women sing. Women seem to have an easier ability to get all over the range on these things. Men, we're not so good at that. We need a lot of help to sing. And when the men are singing, oh my goodness, that really helps the women, helps the children, helps everybody view this God better, I think.

Emotionally suitable, truth-carried lyrics, lyrics that are seriously joyful, lyrics that are God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, gospel-rich. And then I have to say one more thing, Tony, because this is what I write about, this is what I did for 33 years. Don't ever talk about, "We worship for 30 minutes and then we preach." I'll get my back up if you say that.

I'm a preacher and I worship. Preaching is worship. It ought to be, I call it, expository exaltation. Because it's not just music that should have truth components and affectional components. Preaching should have truth components and affectional components. So expository, I really am explaining the Bible, drawing meaning out of the Bible that's really there.

And I'm really thrilled about it. Can anybody tell? That's what I want. I want, that's what preaching is. It helps people see the truth and then be caught up with the preacher in his love affair with that God and that salvation. So I think a good experience, a good worship experience will have at least all of that.

That's good. Thank you, Pastor John. Wow, such a great time. Thanks to all of you who showed up to the live recording in Nashville. It was loud and engaged, as you can hear from this audio, and it was great to meet many of you after the recording. Well, I mentioned at the start of this episode that a team of friends are working to bring Desiring God resources to non-English speaking countries, and that includes a friend of ours named Mo.

You heard his voice earlier, and we asked him for an update on his work. Here's what he said. My name is Mohammad Sanavi. I was born in Iran. I'm a founder and director of the ministry called Bible Training Center for Persians. My ministry is among Farsi speakers. There are three countries people speak Farsi.

Iran, Afghanistan, and part of Tajikistan. So, whatever we do is to reach those three countries. The material that we have translated into Farsi from the Desiring God are solid joys, the good news of the great joy, and many of the pastors' John's sermons. In the last year, I noticed every few days on my social media, I have a deleted contact.

They're all my Afghani friends. They're the pastors, they're the teachers who are working in Afghanistan. And then, boom, we saw it on TV what happened. The Afghanistan fell in the hand of Taliban. I said, "No wonder these people are deleting themselves from us, because it could be a very dangerous situation for them." Months passed, and all of a sudden, I got a phone call.

It's unknown. I don't know who that person is. I answered the person, and it was one of my Afghani's friends. He was a very devoted, he's a very devoted Christian. Very devoted minister. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, probably he wants me to help him to get out of Afghanistan.

And finally, I said, "Brother, what can I do for you?" The answer I heard from him embarrassed me. He said, "Just pray for us. I call you to let you know we need to have a stronger faith to stay here. Just pray for us and do one thing. Can you send me audio sermons every few weeks?

Just one thing to encourage us to stay in our country." I said, "What about if I give you the full Advent devotion?" He loved it. And I said, "And after that, I'm going to give you daily devotion, three to five minutes devotion, every day for the rest of the year." He was so excited.

He said, "Do you have it?" I said, "Yes, we have already worked on the good news of the great joy. We already worked on the solid joys, and they are ready. I will make sure that you receive it. Send me a contact information. I will send it to you." He received it, and then later he told me, "I listened to every devotion over and over every day, and it burned my heart.

It made me fall in love with Jesus more and more." Thank you so much, brother. Who knew that in God knowing the future, we are working on this for the Iranian, but in fact, it was for the Afghanis because they needed that. Whatever I do, I want people to fall in love with Jesus, make their relationship deeper with Jesus, to come to the point that they are ready to die for Jesus.

That's what I love about this Iranian God. God is using every penny that people are giving to this organization to bring more and more people to the cross. So, keep doing what you are doing. We don't know how many people converted because of the $5, the $10, $100 that you gave.

When we go to heaven, God is going to say, "Well done, my children. See who are the people here because of your commitment." Thank you. Amazing testimony. So brilliant to hear this. Thank you, Mo, for your faithful labors in these hard places. If you're listening right now and you gave to Desiring God's Work in 2022, you made Mo's work possible, and I bet you didn't even know it.

So, thank you for your partnership. If you're not yet a partner and you want to join in what's happening through Desiring God's resources in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, join us today. Become a monthly ministry partner. Much of our financial support comes from friends of ours who give, on average, $30 a month to support the work.

To set up monthly giving, go to give.desiringgod.org. That's give.desiringgod.org. Hugely appreciated. We are going to be back on Friday. We'll see you then. you you you you you you you