I have a confession. I’m a Netflix fanatic. It gives me great pleasure to search the Netflix library and find a television series I faithfully watched before it was canceled and forgotten. When I find a series that gives me a twinge of nostalgia, I binge watch every episode over a weekend. During a recent Netflix hunt, I came across an episode from a forgotten series that unexpectedly caused me to push the pause button.
In the episode, the nemesis and his two accomplices were using a music recording to manipulate people. Dressed in black from head to toe, the three would storm into a bank with only a record player and blast the music through speakers hidden in their coats. The sound hypnotized everyone in the bank, and the tellers gladly handed over the money from the drawers and vaults.
After the robbery, police and special agents interviewed a frightened, apprehensive bank teller present at the robbery. They asked her to listen to a recording made by a witness during the robbery. While she listened to the music, she became mesmerized, and her expression of fear and anxiety melted into peaceful smile and her eyes glistened with tears of joy.
When the music stopped, the young woman snapped back to reality unaware of what had happened.
The agents asked her what she was hearing. To them it was noise. Through her tears, she replied, “beautiful music.”
The agents followed up by asking how the music made her feel. Her response left the agents speechless.
“I felt loved,” she replied.
I pushed the pause button to think on this scene for a moment. I realize it was television imagination but what does love sound like?
Paul wrote in the well-recognized “love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13, If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
In other words, if we do everything we know we should and have been gifted to do, and we do not have love, then it’s just noise.
We recognize that sound, the hollow sound of empty words and actions. So, how can we hear the music of love?
We hear the first sounds of love in scripture. God strums the most beautiful sound of His love through every verse of scripture. From the first words of Genesis to the last words of Revelation, God wrote us a love song.
But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Psalm 86:15
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1
The world hears the sound of love when we share love. Jesus spent His ministry teaching us to love others as He had loved us. He asks us to join in the song to let the world hear.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
God Himself sings over us. Imagine the sound of God, our Creator, singing to us. Just as a loving parent sings a lullaby to his child out of love, so also God sings over us out of His great love.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
(emphasis mine)
How can we hear this music? By first hearing and believing the good news of Christ.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17
Dear friends, listen today for the sound of love. God is playing a sweet song of love just for you to hear. Maybe it is the melodious music from a record player. Or, you may hear love in the laughter of your children, the birds singing sweet songs welcoming Spring, or in a warm afternoon breeze. Whatever sound God uses, I pray you hear His love.
Father, thank you for the music of your love. You knew us before the foundation of the earth and you loved us then and you love us now. Open our ears to hear your song. Teach us love others as you have loved us.
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