1 Cor 13.13 The Greatest Of These
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The Greatest Of These Is Love Otherwise entitled: “We Need Someone To Sing With - Part II” 1 Cor 13:13 “For now there are faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” st(Pastor Matt Thiele, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Jan 31 2010) This week I took a bit of a look through my wife’s CD collection. And I’d like to show you what I found! You see, I love music. For me, music is shows us something about God. Music is a mystical mathematical magical thing, It’s something that at first doesn’t seem to have a purpose in live, And yet, music is one of the things that is most important to me! Music has power to change lives, to motivate, to move, to change things. For me the mystery of music is spiritual. It reveals the creative power, the image of God, lurking deep down in our souls. That’s why some people are afraid of the power of music, Because we can use this power to heal and hurt and to make people feel things. Each generation and culture identifies itself musically. You can sometimes even tell by what a person wears what music they love! The most interesting thing about music, Is that the greatest theme of music in all times and all places has been… LOVE. When I looked through my wife Karryn’s music collection, I discovered once more that music always comes back to love. For instance, this Aussie singer had a huge rise in recent years. Notice what her songs come back to… SOUND BYTE – CASEY CHAMBERS “AM I NOT PRETY ...
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The Greatest Of These Is Love Otherwise entitled:“We Need Someone To Sing With Part II” 1 Cor 13:13 “For now there are faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” st (Pastor Matt Thiele, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Jan 312010) This week I took a bit of a look through my wife’s CD collection. And I’d like to show you what I found! You see, I love music. For me, music is shows us something about God. Music is a mystical mathematical magical thing, It’s something that at first doesn’t seem to have a purpose in live, And yet, music is one of the things that is most important to me! Music has power to change lives, to motivate, to move, to change things. For me the mystery of music is spiritual. It reveals the creative power, the image of God, lurking deep down in our souls. That’s why some people are afraid of the power of music, Because we can use this power to heal and hurt and to make people feel things. Each generation and culture identifies itself musically. You can sometimes even tell by what a person wears what music they love! The most interesting thing about music, Is that the greatest theme of music in all times and all places has been… LOVE. When I looked through my wife Karryn’s music collection, I discovered once more that music always comes back to love. For instance, this Aussie singer had a huge rise in recent years. Notice what her songs come back to… SOUND BYTE – CASEY CHAMBERS “AM I NOT PRETY ENOUGH?” Music and love. Eventually music always comes back to love. My wife’s favourite childhood music sounded like this: SOUND BYTE – ABBA “MAMMA MIA” Some of you just wanted to get up and dance. Notice the intimate connections between music and love. The greatest theme of music, in all cultures times and places, is love.
And I don’t mean sex. Freud was wrong. When he said all human behaviour is motivated by sex he was wrong, And believing his stupidity will warp your life and mind. Believing that love is sex will destroy you. Music is about something deeper – it’s about love. We sing about our hearts – about how it makes us feel. These days Karryn’s music tastes have evolved. Like this popular Australian sound… SOUND BYTE – SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM “KANSAS CITY” See – another song about love. Music and Love. It’s always been this way. When you actually stop and look at song words it’s staggering how many are actually about love, or love lost, or betrayal from love, or seeking love, or no love. If we go back fifty years we’ll find Elvis singing about love, We find Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan and the Beatles singing about love more than any other theme. Like my favourite old Tony Bennett song written in 1954… SOUND BYTE – TONY BENNET “FLY ME TO THE MOON” (Actually I admit that this last one was originally my CD). Think on this. Deeply embedded in the human brain is a response to music. It’s mathematical, yet it’s emotional. It comes in a thousand forms, yet it’s universal. It’s never quite the same for two people – it’s almost a part of our souls. Music was made for a spiritual purpose, It’s a pointer to the creator, Who sang us into existence. And the core of music always seems to be…(yell it for me)LOVE. Music seems to always come back to…LOVE. Music always seems to be used for…LOVE. And I believe that the meaning of life is…LOVE. I don’t mean sex.
Some celibate people I know are the most loved and loving people in the world. Some celibate people have more love than the promiscuous can ever imagine. I don’t mean man and woman or just marriage – which are great symbols of real love. I mean total honesty, real relationships, giving of yourself. Music always seems to come back to the power of giving ourselves – of knowing. That’s because we were made to know and be known. We were made for love. This is our purpose. We twist it into all sorts of abusive and wrong things. We have fallen far from our original purpose. We turn sex into an appetite rather than a gift. We turn love into a need rather than a relationship. We forget about our creator and why we were made. The music of the human race proves this. Music is spiritual – and it always seems to come back to love. When I pray, sometimes the Holy Spirit fills me in ways I can feel. I’ve often felt God’s love pour into my heart and body, Tingling all over, overpowering and greater than anything you’ve ever felt. I’ve felt God’s love pour out on me as God the Father says, “I forgive you, I love you as you are, you’re my own child.” When you hear and sense God’s love it’s almost musical. Have you ever done some theology? No matter who you are the answer is “yes”. You’re all theologians, because the word ‘theology’ just means ‘God talk’. Theology is what people do when we talk about God or no God or the meaning of life. So we’re all ‘God talkers’ in some way. At some point we all ask the big questions. The most radical theological statement ever made. Do you know what it is? It wasn’t when Frederick Neitsche said,“God is dead.” It wasn’t when Gandhi’ said,“A coward is incapable of expressing love.” It is the words from the Bible in 1 John 4:8. “God is love.”The most radical theological statement…“God is love.” To know God is to experience a change, a reorientation of your heart and life, When Jesus Christ shows God – he shows love so great that he’d die for you, To know God is to discover the real meaning of life – which is love. Have you ever noticed the similarity between praise music and love songs…
Recently someone commented to me that many of the new worship songs from churches around the world sound and read like love songs! But that’s not new. In the songbook of the Bible, the Psalms, we read things like: Psalms 63:13 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, like a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. Worship songs have often sounded like love songs. Because that’s what it’s like when lives get reconnected with God! Almost a thousand years ago was a Christian teacher called Hildegard Of Bingen (10981179). She wrote amazing worship music which praises God’s love. It was like the Hillsong Praise of a thousand years ago. Listen to this: SOUND BTYE – HILDEGARD OF BINGEN “MIRABILIS DEUS” And many of the greatest hymns are love songs. I think this is my favourite hymn. PLAY AND SING: “Jesus lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is nigh, Hide me O my Saviour hide, Till the storm of life is past, Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last.” Tune J.B. Dykes (1761), Words Charles Wesley (17071788) (See also hymns in Lutheran Hymnal 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152 etc!) Now let’s look at just one embarrassing thing from my CD collection. As a teenager my favourite band of all time was the Police.
I’ve been at Aussie barbeques, where 20 blokes with beer in hand start singing this song – blokes singing this song at the top of their lungs! I still know every single word of this song off by heart. SOUND BYTE – THE POLICE “ROXANNE” It’s a kind of love song. As he sings to a girl caught in a cycle of abuse he sings to her: “Ever since I knew ya, I wouldn’t talk down to ya, I have to tell you just how I feel, I won’t share you with another boy, I know my mind is made up, So put away your make up, I told you once I’ll tell you again, It’s a bad way. Roxanne! You don’t have to put on the red light…” He’s singing about love he’s trying to protect the girl he loves from a life of abuse. He’s trying to rescue a girl caught in prostitution. He doesn’t want her ‘put on the red light’ anymore because he’ll look after her. It’s a love song. When I hear this song I hear God singing to us, I hear God singing about how we human beings walked away from God to chase all sorts of empty abusive things. But God’s singing that we don’t have to chase other things to be loved anymore, We don’t have to seek approval and we don’t have to earn it, We don’t have to try to lose ourselves in riches and things. God wants us back passionately, even jealously, He wants us back so much he gives his own life to save us. Of all the things in the world, the greatest is love. We were designed to experience true relationship, being known and accepted for who we are. Love changes people. I want to invite you to come to Jesus, Come to him, turn away from your past, Turn away from your life of loving things, and seeking to be happy, Turn away from being the centre of your own world, Turn away from the desperate search for meaning, And come to Jesus. Come today, Pray with you to give your life over to him,
And then the journey of real love begins.Amen.
