Elevation Worship & Maverick City Music (Feat. Brandon Lake) – Talking to Jesus

Elevation Worship is a church-led band that was created in 2007.  They join Bethel Music and Hillsong as the “big three” that has the biggest reach in modern Christian music.  They released many albums and EP’s.

They also won eight awards, including two Billboard for Top Christian Artist (2021) and Top Christian Song (Graves into Gardens, 2021), and two GMA Dove awards for Spanish Language Album of the Year (Aleluya (En La Tierra), 2020) and Worship Recorded Song of the Year (The Blessing (Live), 2020).

Also, check out my other Elevation Worship reviews. 

To put it succinctly, Maverick City Music is the audience on stage.  Recently, they have collaborated with other artists such as Elevation Worship, Chandler Moore, and Brandon lake to produce music.

They released seven EP’s and eight albums, including:

• Maverick City Vol. 1 EP (2019)
• Maverick City Vol. 2 EP (2019)
• Maverick City Vol. 3, Part 1 (2020)
• Maverick City Vol. 3, Part 2 (2020)
• You Hold It All Together (EP, 2020)
• Maverick City Christmas (EP, 2020)
• Move Your Heart (EP, 2021)
• Jubilee (EP, 2021)
• Como En El Cielo (Spanish, 2021)
• Old Church Basement (with Elevation Worship, 2021)
• Jubilee: Juneteenth Edition (2021)
• Tribl I (with Tribl, 2021)
• Venga Tu Reino (2021)
• A Very Maverick Christmas (2021)
• Breathe (EP, 2022)

They won three awards last year, including one Billboard Music Award for Top Gospel Album for their album Maverick City Vol. 3 Part 1 and two GMA Doves: New Artist of the Year and Worship Album of the Year (Old Church Basement).

Also, check out my previous Maverick City Music reviews.

Lyrics can be found at https://genius.com/Elevation-worship-and-maverick-city-music-talking-to-jesus-lyrics.

Side Note: For the remainder of this review, I will refer to Elevation Worship & Maverick City Music as “Elevation & Maverick”.

Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site!  Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review.  I strongly encourage you to consider the potential blessings and dangers of this artist‘s theology by visiting Resources.

1. What message does the song communicate?

This song follows four generations of people who pray to Jesus, including Grandma, Mom, Son/Daughter (Elevation & Maverick), and Child.  Grandma and Mom both give words of advice to Son/Daughter, who passes them to their children, including:

• Talking to Jesus saved my life
• Make sure God is in your life
• You should give it a try

Unfortunately, the first two are ambiguous.  How does talking to Jesus save Grandma’s life, much less anyone else in this four-generation exchange of ideas?  While there might be vital information on the back-end, Elevation & Maverick don’t tell us.  Yes, Christians can assume repentance and faith as part of Grandma’s prayer; However, the way this line is worded sounds like salvation comes from mere prayer.  I’m not against talking to Jesus, but not if we think talking to Him saves us.

In what sense is “God in [my] life”?  Based on the song, I’m not sure.  Again, Christians might read into this surrender to God’s will.  However, it’s not clear on this point either.  I hesitate to agree that we should “give it a try” without an explanation.

Elevation & Maverick proclaim that Jesus is our friend, that there’s no wrong way to pray, and that we should be honest with Him.  All of these are true.  However, they also state, “there’s no bad time to start”.  While technically true, my concern is that our natural inclination towards laziness will respond by saying “That’s a great idea!  I’ll get around to it”, then we don’t do it.

Side Note: To those annoyed by massive repetition, Chorus repeats the same phrase eight times with slight variations per iteration.  There are four iterations, with the fourth containing an additional two refrains.  Pre-Chorus does the same with a different phrase, though with six repeats in four iterations.

Score: 5/10

2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?

Some of it is in agreement with Scripture; However, its presentation of salvation in Verse 1, the lack of clear meaning of “God in your life” in Verse 2, and its lack of urgency in terms of praying to Jesus in Verse 5 disagree with God’s Word.

[Verse 1]

Lines 1-4: Grandma was talking to Jesus, though sometimes prayer sounds like gibberish to those who don’t understand.

Lines 5-8: Pre-Chorus somewhat explains later what “this kind of praying” is about: Talking to Jesus.  Elevation & Maverick (the grandson) agrees.  However, Grandma isn’t clear about how talking to Jesus saves her.  While I don’t expect songs to be sermons, it has the ring of “just pray this prayer and you’ll be saved”, which isn’t true.  According to Matthew 7:21-23, some people will talk to Jesus, only to hear “I never knew you” and “leave Me, you who practice lawlessness”.  Maybe Grandma repented and trusted in Jesus (Matthew 3:2, Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15, Luke 24:47, Acts 2:36-38, Acts 3:19-21, Acts 20:21, and 2 Timothy 2:25-26) as part of her daily prayers and imparted that wisdom to her grandson.  But, Elevation & Maverick is vague on this point.  They do not address it elsewhere in the song.

[Pre-Chorus (1)]

Lines 1-4: See commentary on Verse 1, lines 5-8.

[Verse 2]

Lines 1-8: Mom imparts wisdom to her son, that they must have “God in their life”.  Much like in Verse 1, this is an unclear statement.  What does this look like?  Is she saying that God must permeate every part of their being, while they surrender to His will (Psalm 43:5, Isaiah 64:8, Matthew 10:38, Matthew 11:28-30, Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34-38, Mark 10:28, Luke 9:23, Luke 14:27, John 15:1-11, Romans 6:13, Romans 12:1-2, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 11:6, James 4:7-10, and 1 Peter 5:6)?  Is it superficial, that they talk to Jesus and make no attempt to obey Him, proving that their faith is dead (James 2:14-26)?  Once again, there could be a secret here that lends to the former conclusion and not the latter.  Yet, Elevation & Maverick do not share it with us nor address it later in the song.

[Pre-Chorus (2)]

Lines 1-8: See commentary on Verse 2, lines 1-8.  Also repeats “talking to Jesus” a lot.

[Chorus]

Line 1: This phrasing borrows from Joseph M. Scriven’s opening line in What A Friend We Have In Jesus, alongside John 15:15.

Lines 2-8: Essentially repeats line 1.

Side Note: One of the iterations contains an added line, “none more faithful, none more true”, which is summarized in 2 Timothy 2:13.

[Verse 3]

Lines 1-8: The song shifts to the fourth generation; Elevation & Maverick’s three children, specifically on the oldest at 15 years of age.

[Verse 4]

Lines 1-8: Elevation & Maverick presumedly impart onto their 15-year-old child the wisdom and teachings given in Verse 1 and 2.

[Pre-Chorus (3)]

Lines 1-8: Essentially the same as Pre-Chorus 2, except the pronoun shifts from “I’m” to “we”.

[Verse 5]

Line 1: If the Psalms are of any indication, God wants from us complete and brutal honesty.

Line 2: Technically, a bad time to start would be after we died and are facing judgment (Hebrews 9:27).  However, we’ll just assume charitably that this statement references people who are alive.  Quibble aside, while it’s true that there isn’t a bad time to start talking to Jesus, my concern is that its lack of urgency will strengthen some to resolve their delay.  Today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow (Acts 3:19, 2 Corinthians 6:2, and Hebrews 4:7).  For we do not know when we will die (James 4:14).

Lines 3 and 4: See commentary on line 1.

Lines 5 and 6: I’ll assume that by “religion”, Elevation & Maverick means works righteousness.  On that point, they are partially correct.  Friendship is part of the package.  However, there’s more to our personal relationship with God, as I’ve alluded to in my commentary on Verses 1 and 2.

Lines 7 and 8: That is, talk to our Heavenly Father like He is our Abba, meaning “daddy” (Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6).  It is a name that invokes intimacy and reverence for God.

[Pre-Chorus (4)]

Lines 1-8: Essentially the same as Pre-Chorus 2, except Elevation & Maverick shift their focus towards us, that we should follow in their footsteps.

[Interlude (1)]

Lines 1-3: Essentially repeats Pre-Chorus (4), line 1.

[Interlude (2)]

Line 1: Calls to Casper the friendly ghost.

Line 2: Repeats line 1.

Line 3: It’s unclear what the artist is saying in the video.  However, since this doesn’t appear in the official lyrics by Elevation Worship (see https://www.elevationworship.com/music/talking-to-jesus), I’ll let this one go.

Line 4: That is, just talk to Jesus (see Pre-Chorus (4), line 1).

Lines 5 and 6: Essentially repeats line 4.

Score: 5/10

3. How would an outsider interpret the song?

Unbelievers will likely see that Elevation & Maverick present praying to Jesus as a mere suggestion that isn’t a big deal.  We know it’s Jesus because Elevation & Maverick explicitly state it.  Even if they take Elevation & Maverick’s suggestion, some will think that salvation is about praying to a friendly God without repentance, trust, or yielding to God’s will.  This leads to false converts.  Also, they would likely disagree that Christianity isn’t about religion, given that Christianity is a religious worldview.

Score: 2/10

4. What does this song glorify?

While it glorifies God that Jesus is Elevation & Maverick’s friend whom we should all pray to, their ambiguous explanations for salvation and the meaning of God in their lives, alongside insistence to repent and trust in Jesus, significantly mar His glory.

Score: 5/10

Closing Comments

Elevation Worship & Maverick City Music’s Talking to Jesus is ambiguous.  While I applaud that they desire for others to talk to Jesus, they are unclear on how talking to Him saves us and what it means for God to be in our lives.  Even if they are clear on these points, there’s no sense that danger follows those who don’t repent and trust in Jesus, much less talk to Him.  It is difficult to believe that God is inherently glorified.  Unbelievers may sense these points and become Christians without surrendering to God, or ignore this song’s message altogether.

I cannot recommend it for corporate worship.

Final Score: 4.5/10

Artist Info

Track: Talking to Jesus (listen to the song)

Artist: Elevation Worship & Maverick City Music (Feat. Brandon Lake)

Album: Old Church Basement

Genre: Gospel

Release Year: 2021

Duration: 8:30

Agree?  Disagree?  Don’t be shy or have a cow!  Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.