Matt Redman: Modern-Day Psalmist

[Music] oh no [Music] hailing from great britain's worship scene matt redmond has emerged as one of the most significant worship leaders and songwriters of this generation i want to amplify the name of jesus i want to make it loud you know i want to lift him up high i want some people to take notice it's been said about him many times but it's true matt is a psalmist he is a modern hymn writer he's so gifted he's anointed and his the words from his songs just really really speak to our hearts his songs really reflect a lot of scripture and they're really uplifting and they speak a lot of truth matt's quick to admit that his musical gifts are all attributed to god's hand in his life i actually don't have any musical training at all it's quite funny to me that i get away with what i do in life i've you know traveled all over the world playing worship music and writing songs and i can't read music [Music] matt's uplifting hope infused worship music actually emerged from years of suffering and brokenness my dad died when i was seven years old and i actually found out a few years later he'd committed suicide that has a whole lot of other questions that you ask yourself you know was it anything to do with me did he not love us enough to stay around his mother eventually remarried but the new beginning their family was hoping for quickly disappeared things didn't go so well with this new guy and he was actually fairly abusive and i really got put in a half place you know a hard spot you know it was just a horrible season for our family yet in the midst of his pain and confusion matt clung to a truth he discovered a few years before when i was 10 years old i think it was in june 1984 louis palau came to london and my mum took me along it was in qpr football stadium luis palau's mission to london was a six-week evangelistic campaign which saturated the city with the good news of jesus christ matt and his mom were among the nearly 300 000 people who attended the nightly meetings it was just a great night and i remember so many things about it i remember the music you know just i've never been in a group that many people you know and they're singing these praises to jesus prior to the festival matt knew about god but had never experienced a personal relationship with him as father the lord says i'll never leave you nor forsake you the lord says i'm with you always till the end of the earth we can say confidently the lord is my helper i will not fear what can man do to me something clicked for me that night it was like i knew that for the first time this god who's kind of out there actually he's not just out there he's here as well he's close and he's made himself available and close and accessible god says to you my son tonight the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life let me come into your heart you know i was a young boy but it clicked i understood it i understood what it meant i understood what he was saying about sin and you know and kind of falling away from god and even if your father was a poor example you come to the living father he is the ideal father he is a father who loves you you know this there's a father in heaven who calls me and for me that just resounded with me i was like you know i was this fatherless little kid and you can come to jesus tonight and say lord jesus i believe in you i receive you and i decided that this is what my life's going to be about it's going to be about worshiping this jesus that i'm hearing about it's going to be about following him and trying to get my life in line with the things that luis is saying tonight now i'm going to ask all of you to come and gladly confess that he now lives in your life i'm like man that was that was a beautiful night [Music] so looking back i just think wow that's just god's wisdom god's timing allow me to have that foundation so that when i went through these storms of life at that age i had enough so i wasn't shaken it was during this season that matt began writing songs as a way to express his heart to god there was stuff happen in my life i didn't i feel i could talk to anyone else about but i could talk to god about it matt started sharing his songs at church never imagining the impact his music would have in the years to come he writes songs like no one else and they can really speak to the hardest times of life maybe you've come tonight and you're walking through some kind of pain or maybe you're bringing a stress of some kind into this place well bring it in tonight and just say here you go god i trust you with that i'm bringing it tonight like a trust offering every [Music] still i will god's character never changes no matter what you're going through god is who he is and he's sovereign and that was one of the main things that i learned from his music this music has gotten me through some of the hard times i've dealt with in my life with six albums a dove award and a number of top worship songs matt's music has also become a familiar sound in the local church matt's really giving a voice to the entire world to worship god he's doing something so contemporary that's being used in churches all over the united states we sing blessed be your name a lot in our church and it's just it's just it gets the whole congregation involved along with encouraging believers matt also hopes his music motivates christians to share the truth of christ with the people in their world i want to write songs which actually share something the truth of who god is but also songs that kind of help send people matt's songs really do encourage me to share my faith and so i can actually use this music as a witnessing tool when i hear the words of his songs it just encourages me to do better and to want to serve god in a better way and as much as i can it's about the church it's about everyone going out and being the beautiful news of god in your workplace in your home in your you know college or school wherever it is [Music] matt's passion to share this beautiful news stems from the change in his own life years before when he heard the simple but powerful gospel message from luis palau the gospel is it works it's real and i guess like someone like louise can see he you can see that he's been to so many different cultures and nations and spoken to so many generations and it and it and it works in the gospel of jesus when you put it before people it bears fruit long after matt is gone and i'm gone and all this we're all gone people will be singing matt's songs there's not very many people on the earth that that can be set up for matt it all comes back to simply giving hope to people through his music sharing the truth about a god who as he can testify never lets go i love it i love what i do and i love it because you get the chance to see god impacting people's lives storm you

Channel: Luis Palau Association

Views: 17,136

Rating: 4.9703703 out of 5

Keywords: faith, Christianity, stories, testimonies, documentary, Luis Palau, worship, musician, songwriter, UK, Matt Redman

Id: oy0ZJZwmGuk

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2009