Following his highly acclaimed 2012 release Clear the Stage and his 2013 independent project The Hymns Sessions, Vol. 1, Jimmy Needham has released his first studio album for Platinum Pop, Vice & Virtue. 

In the same vein as his convicting songs "Fence Riders," "The Reason I Sing" and "Clear the Stage," Needham once again pushes boundaries, inspires debate and challenges the thought processes of many with his latest album, and never more so than on his catchy title track "Vice & Virtue."

"For me this record is much about breaking new musical ground," says Needham. "My approach changed entirely, from the songwriting process to the recording booth. I wrote with a band. I wrote over beats. I wrote without my guitar. I wrote many of the songs while recording. We spent more than 60 days in studio pushing and pulling this thing until it felt like a musical space I hadn't visited before. I couldn't be happier with the result." I had the chance to speak with Jimmy about "Vice & Virtue."

Please tell me the personal story behind this song.

I don't really know what sound I've been shooting for with my previous albums, although I've felt like a house divided in that all the music I love content-wise is acoustic, folk music like Bob Dylan and Derek Webb. That sound allows the writer to get really introspective, and the instrumentation gets out of the way so the content can be in the foreground. But all of the music I want to listen to for the music's sake is funky, fun and soulful, head-bobbing music. 

I think if I've been chasing anything in this last decade of making records, it's trying to figure out how to marry those two preferences in a way that marries the content with music that I like to listen to. In my heart, I'm not a Bob Dylan, musically. This album is probably as close to finding that middle ground as I've gotten to, by God's grace, and if that is what happened on this record, it's due in large part to my team and my producer Will Hunt. 

I partnered with Will for this album, and we set out to be unconventional. I asked for his ideas for how to push me in a new space as a writer. I knew if I kept using the same method of creation, I'd get the same output. He really pushed me on my approach. Before I always grabbed my guitar, went to my bedroom for 18 months, and came out with 12 songs and gave it to a producer and said "make it sound cooler than acoustic."

I wrote these songs along with tracks, and for this song Will had the music track, and I wrote over it like a hip-hop artist would write. I found it incredibly inspiring. I also wrote with a band for the first time ever. At the right moment, I heard a Bible study by Timothy Keller about Galatians. For years I hadn't been able to quite put my finger on it, but I operated in sort of a low-grade depression. Nothing to put me on the couch about, but a general sense of not being okay and maybe God's not really happy with me, and I'm not landing the plane with my actions. I might do well on a given day, or maybe I feel good for a moment, but on my measuring stick of what my devotional life was like or evangelism life was like, I was coming up short. 

That was robbing me of so much joy. It began to be obvious to me as I heard good teaching at my church and from Tim Keller's Galatians study and ultimately the Word of God, it became very telling that my stability and sense of worth and righteousness was so bound up in my behaviors and so not bound up in Christ's behaviors on my behalf. If there's anything at the heartbeat of Christianity, it's the idea of imputed righteousness. Christ would give us all of our worth and all of our right standing before God through His accomplishments and not our own.

Which Bible verses connect to the message of the song?
Galatians 1:6-10 (NKJV): "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."

Galatians 3:1 (MSG): "You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough."

Galatians 6:2 (NKJV): "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

Philippians 3:7-11 (NIV): "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Psalm 103 (MSG): "God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, He's rich in love. He doesn't endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is His love to those who fear Him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, He has separated us from our sins. As parents feel for their children, God feels for those who fear Him."

What is the takeaway message of the song and album?

If there's anything that makes us a Christian, it's the acknowledgment that we bring nothing to the table. He brings everything. By faith we embrace that, and we are made forever and ever okay and right in God's sight. Theologically I've embraced that since my conversion, but on a practical level, and I think probably for a lot of us Christians and certainly all of the non-Christian world, we are just laboring to make ourselves feel okay and worthy. 

What that revealed to me is how much that cheapens all of our supposed good works. All of the things we think are contributing to the glory of God and to helping people appreciate His worth are actually, at least in my case, were not being done for God, but for me. All of my virtue that I was putting out there and thinking was pleasing God was actually an attempt to make God pleased with me. How dysfunctional that was to me. Once I began to see that everything was being looked at through that lens, I saw it everywhere. How much vice is caught up in all of our virtue? 

That's how the idea for this record started to take form. The title track is the epitome of what I was trying to get at. You can trust in yourself or you can trust in Christ, but you can't do both. The Galatians were trying to have a little bit of Christ and a little bit of their behaviors. Paul told them you can't have both. They are diametrically opposed to each other. They are mutually exclusive. In the final analysis, you will either stand before God and say "look what I've done," or "look what He's done on my behalf." Putting stock in thinking you are keeping God's commandments and you are a good person and will earn your way to Heaven is actually coming from Hell, as stated in the lyrics "Hell's gonna have an HOA, Hell's gonna have a low crime rate." My hope for this is that people will repent of relying on their niceties to make them okay. That's not okay.

Lyrics:
All my sins go to private school
All my sins know the golden rule
All my sins hold the door for you
There's vice in all my virtue 

Even my nice tries are misfires
Even my best lines are white lies
Even the demons do this too
There's vice in all my virtue

I treat you more like a rabbit's foot
If I hold on tight you'll do me good
Less like love more like voodoo
I got vice in all my virtue

Hell's gonna have an HOA
Hell's gonna have a low crime rate
If we don't watch out it'll have us too
There's vice in all my virtue 

I'm losing sleep about it
Don't wanna be without ya
Can't even breathe without ya
Help me, yeah

On my own without ya
All alone without ya
There ain't no hope 
Without ya help me

Oh my my my my
My good is never good enough
Good enough
Way way way down deep
There is a criminal in us
Down in us

Which is good and which is bad:
Crystal meth or a gospel tract?
If it's done for me and not for You
There's vice in all my virtue

Businessmen and soccer moms
College kids and debutantes 
Caiphas and Judas too
There's vice in all my virtue

Like "My Jesus" by Todd Agnew, this is one of the most challenging songs I've ever heard. We can hear ourselves being sung about in this song as soccer moms, businessmen, college kids, etc. Jesus came to free us from the belief that we could ever be good enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven on our own accord. 

The Pharisees rejected Jesus because He pointed out to them that because of their hypocrisy and relying on their self-righteousness they were less likely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than the thief on the Cross, the tax collectors and the harlots who knew they were sinners in need of a Savior and made that confession, believing in their hearts that Jesus Christ was Lord.

That's the point and takeaway message of this song. One day we will all stand in judgment before the Lord, and we will be judged by either our own works, or by putting all of our hope and trust in the completed and finished work of Jesus to stand in our place. The lyrics of this song may sting, but remember the quote: "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

As Jimmy sang these lyrics over this infectious musical track, the Holy Spirit poured convictions out of his heart. That's when you know where you are standing with God: when you don't see any righteousness in yourself, but in humility, and at times self-doubt about your motivations. These are exactly the confessions we should all be making. 

Where are you in this song? What are some of your virtuous behaviors that you are performing to hope God accepts you? Jesus came to die for both our vices and our virtues. That's humbling. Pray "Lord, please don't let me put faith in my works, but only put my faith and hope in Your completed work." Let that free you. You'll be challenged and hopefully also changed as you listen to Jimmy sing "If it's done for me and not for You, There's vice in all my virtue." Amen to that!

(Watch the music video here.)