The Missing Chord Of Love

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you this question, when is the last time you've done anything that's required all your strength?

Everything you have. See, Jesus says that's how you love Him. With all the strength that you have and you think about that, that implies tremendous intensity, sustained effort. I love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength.

Wow. Apparently my pursuit of God has to be an all-out effort. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Adelaide Proctor began writing poetry when she was just a child. Her first published poem brought her fame as a teenager. Among her readers were Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens. She became a Christian in her early 20s and she moved from writing poetry to writing hymns. And she also took up the cause of the homeless in England. Her health began to fail her in her 30s and she spent most of that decade bedridden.

And at 39, she died of tuberculosis. By far, her most famous poem is The Lost Chord. Composer Arthur Sullivan was so moved by reading The Lost Chord to his dying brother that he set it to music. And it became the most famous song at the turn of the 20th century. After the Titanic sunk, The Lost Chord was sung at a benefit concert for the families of the victims.

The Lost Chord was the song that Thomas Edison recorded to show off his new invention, the phonograph. You see, the poem tells a story of a woman who is weary and anxious. And one evening, she sat down to play at the organ and as her fingers sort of lay idly on the keys and without paying any particular attention, suddenly her fingers created or touched a combination of keys that brought about the most beautiful chord of music she had ever heard. It was angelic. It seemed to soar from the soul of the organ to her soul. The chord changed everything in her life. All of a sudden, she had peace where she had anxiety and she had hope. And then the chord faded and was gone. And try as she might, she was never able to reproduce that chord again.

She ends the poem saying that she longed to hear the missing chord again but would likely not hear it until she reached heaven. Over the decades, century, critics have said that the reason that the lost chord resonates to such a degree with human beings is that we have a universal realization that there's something missing in our lives. Something we're not sure what it is but we know it's there. There's something missing in our world. There's something missing in our lives. There's something missing in our heart. That thing that brings harmony to the discordant notes of our lives. The question is, what is it? Well, that's the deepest and most foundational question of all philosophy. Philosophers have tried for millennia to answer that question.

What is the missing chord? It's the subject of countless sermons, public lectures. It even invades pop culture in the day in which we live. Paulo Coelho, who wrote The Alchemist, was on the Oprah Winfrey show. And Oprah Winfrey asked him, what is that very most special thing that makes us spiritual?

And he said, well, it's not necessarily a belief in God. He said, I believe that courage is the greatest spiritual quality and makes all the difference in life. Actress Audrey Hepburn says the most important thing in life is to enjoy your life. That's all that really matters.

Taylor Swift. I think the most important thing in life is the dance to the beat of your own drum and look like you're having more fun than those people who look cool. You know, it's not even funny because that is the prevailing view in our postmodern world. Christians have weighed in on this. Theologians have weighed in on this. Man's chief aim is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

The Westminster Catechism. That's the most important thing. That's the missing cord. The Apostle Paul seems to imply that the missing cord is to know God.

And all of these are partially right. Some say the missing cord is to be an active part of the Great Commission, take the good news of Jesus Christ across the street and around the world. That's the missing cord. But I think the final word, and I think that the one who should speak the final word, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you open your Bibles to Mark chapter 12? Mark chapter 12, verse 28. Verse 28 starts, One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing that he had answered them well, asked Jesus, What commandment is the foremost of all? And Jesus answered and said, The foremost is, Hero is real, the Lord our God is one Lord.

He goes back to Deuteronomy chapter 6 in the Pentateuch. And he says, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. He adds then the second is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. In the Matthew passage, in Matthew 22, after he says that first part, Love the Lord your God. You can't have strength in the Matthew passage. With all your heart, mind, and soul, he says, This is the great and foremost commandment.

This is the missing cord. This is the most important thing. Loving God, the very most important thing in all human life. The question of the day for you is, do you love God? I'm not asking you if you're a believer.

I'm not asking that. I'm not asking if you revere God or you're afraid of God. You respect God. I'm asking you, do you love God? See, loving God is the most important thing that we do according to Jesus. One of the things that's added in this passage in Mark that I find, he says you love him with all your strength. Now, let me ask you this question. When is the last time you've done anything that's required all your strength?

Everything you have. See, Jesus says that's how you love him. With all the strength that you have when you think about that, that implies tremendous intensity, sustained effort. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength.

Wow. Apparently, my pursuit of God has to be an all-out effort. You see, he's not telling us to just respect the Lord. We have to have an all-in kind of love.

And by the way, this isn't the only place he says things like this. Remember, Jesus also said that you have to love me more. You say, well, more than who, Lord?

Your mom, your dad, your wife, your husband, your children, your siblings. You have to love me more. In fact, he says there, if you don't love me more than that, you're not even worthy to be my disciple.

Well, that makes us uneasy. You know, it's an interesting thing because we really know how much we love the people that we love in our lives. But I think the reason it makes us so uneasy is because I don't think we really love God that way. How can you demand that I love him like I love my mom? He's not asking you to love him like you love your mom. He's asking you to love him more than you love your mom. You see, I think that's the missing chord, the missing chord of life for so many of us is to love God the way that he loves you.

That makes all the difference in the world. We were created to love God. You see, we weren't just created to obey God. If God wanted that, by the way, he could have created us without something that gets us in a whole world of trouble, free will. He could have created us without it.

And God would just say what we need to do and we would just march through life just doing exactly what he says. God says, I don't want that. I'm not looking for that. I want you to love me.

Wow. And see, that's the great creation of the free will. You see, if the will wasn't free, then you never would really love God, ever.

And he's willing to take that risk. And I often think that when he created Adam and Eve and you have this loving relationship and it comes and he says he walks with them in the garden, this love relationship, and all of a sudden that relationship is destroyed through sin. But something else was destroyed. Not only to destroy our relationship with God and needing now to be reconciled to God, but sin brought into our lives the idea that we really don't want to love God.

We don't see it that way, not as people. Turn with me now to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. You know the passage. It speaks of these last days from the time of Paul to the day. He said, realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. Men will be lovers of self and lovers of money.

He says, boastful and arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful and unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited. And then he says, lovers of pleasure. And then this phrase, rather than lovers of God. See, our created intended purpose is to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We love God that way.

But the missing chord is that we don't. And in fact, he says, if you look at man, in this case, man loves self, narcissism. Man loves money, materialism.

Man loves pleasure, hedonism. These are the substitutes rather than loving God. Loving God is the most important thing that you and I can do. Secondly, the Lord's not naive. The Lord tests your love for him. Turn with me now to Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 1. We saw this on the midweek Bible study in the book of Acts, but it speaks to this issue. Verse 1, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and he gives you signs and wonders, he performs miracles around you, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you saying, let us go after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them. He said, if someone comes and performs miracles in your midst but they're trying to lead you away from your relationship with me, he says in verse 3, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you.

Wow. The Lord your God is testing you. Now, we want to say he must be testing us to just see how discerning we are.

Because we could figure out, yeah, that was a miracle, but I don't like what you're saying. And there's some of that in scripture, no doubt, but watch this. He says, the Lord of God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

In other words, he says, I will permit things to come into your life to test whether you love me more than anything. So what are the things that you love? Your career? You see your children? Your reputation?

You see your favorite team? Your favorite hobby? What is it you love? The Lord says, yeah, I put those into your life. I want to test you, see if you really love me that way.

You see, you have to ask yourself that question over and over again. The missing cord is to love God the same way that he loves us. Hmm.

Does anything draw you away from your love for God? It's an astounding thing. It's a convicting question. By the way, there's another way that this should work. There's another test you have.

Every day, you and I have this test. If you love Mozart, what do you do? What if someone said to you, is there any musician or anything composer you really love? You say, I love Mozart. They'd say, what's your favorite piece? And you would say, I don't know.

I've never listened to him. No, if you love Mozart, you listen to his music, right? I mean, you would.

If you love golf, you make any excuse you can at any time you can to get out there. You just want to be there. If you love your Labrador Retriever, you play fetch. You see, he's a Labrador Retriever. Question, what if you love the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings? What if you love him?

What do you do? You know what Jesus said in John? If you love me, you keep my commandments.

See, it's by definition. What do you mean? I thought I had to do that out of religious duty. No, no, he said, I don't want that.

I've had enough of that. You see, the motivation of the Christian life isn't religious duty. You see, the motivation isn't guilt. The motivation is love.

It's so much stronger a motivation. And if he's the kings and Lord of Lords over everything, when he asks you to do something, you do it if you love him. Remember Peter three times? Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love him. Peter, do you love me? Come on, Lord. But what do you say every time?

Glad to hear it? He said, feed my sheep, tend my flock. In other words, if you love me, you do something because he is the Lord. And so if you love the Lord, there is the test every single day.

If you love me, you will do as I ask. Loving God is the most important thing about us. The Lord tests your love for him. And by the way, to love the Lord is to love his word. Turn with me now to Psalm 119. Psalm 119. The longest psalm in the Psalter. Verse 47. This amazing, amazing psalm. Verse 47. I shall delight in your commandments because I have to do them. And you're the boss.

And you could make it miserable for me if I don't. See, that's a religious view of that. But this says, I shall delight in your commandments, which I love. Verse 97. Oh, how I love your law.

It is my meditation all the day. I'm just not trying to read through the Bible in a year to see if I can get the passages finished. He said, I love this. 113. I hate those who are double-minded, but I love your law. Verse 127.

Therefore, I love your commandments. Above gold. Yes, above fine gold.

I love this. 140. Your word is very pure. Therefore, your servant loves it. 159.

Consider how I love your precepts. Wow. 163. I hate and despise falsehood, but I love your law. 165. Those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble.

167. My soul keeps your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. You see, to love God is to love his word.

Why? Because it's in his word where God reveals himself to us. You see, that's when I know how much he loves me.

See, that's where I find out that I have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that I'm not righteous, that I need someone to save me, and that God loved me so much he sent his son into the world to die for me. Christ loved me so much that he not only lived the perfect life, but he went to the cross as my substitute. He loves me so much that Paul says, nothing can separate me from the love of God.

Nothing. Oh, how he loves me. That's what I find out from the word over and over again. Through his word, God whispers in your heart, I love you. I love you. Jeremiah said, your words became for me a joy in the light of my heart. You see, if you love God, you love his word, not because you have a duty to try to tread through it, but because you love to hear him speak to you. Loving God is the most important thing you do. The Lord tests those, your love for him. And the love of God is to love his word. And God blesses those who love him. Go to Psalm 91 while we're in the book, Psalm 91.

I love this, starting in verse 11. He will give his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands that you would not strike your foot against the stone.

Wow. He says, you will tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent, you will trample down. Because he has loved me, therefore, I will deliver him. That's the Lord speaking. Because he has loved me, I will deliver him. Wow. Because I love him, he will deliver me.

What a statement. Psalm 18. I love this psalm. David. Look how long the inscription is on the top of this psalm.

For the choir director, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord who spoke to the Lord, the words of the psalm in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said. David's like, look, I want this son. And I want to tell you exactly when I wrote this. And he does.

And notice how it starts. I love you, O Lord. I love you. My strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. And I am saved and delivered from my enemies. See, nothing was going well in David's life.

It wasn't like if you loved the Lord that nothing bad will ever happen. David says, look, my enemies are after me. I've got real enemies. In fact, the enemy that really is after me is the king of Israel himself, Saul. And they chase me down.

They're hunting me all the time. See, David understood that. No question about it. He really understood his problem. In spite of the enemies that he had from without, and by the way, no one was more aware of this, David also realized he had the enemy within that you and I have, his own sin. He said, I've got these enemies.

On the outside and on the inside, he said, they're right there. Notice then verse 31. He said, for who is God but the Lord?

And who is a rock except our God, the God who girds me with strength and makes my way blameless? He said, he makes my feet like hinds' feet. He sets me upon my high places.

That's an interesting thing that he says. Look what God does for me. He said, God takes care of me. He gives me strength. For those on the outside, he gives me forgiveness for my problem on the inside. That's why I love him.

You see, there's no question about it that one of the biggest problems that we have is we never experience the missing cord. We just don't. We do duty. We go to church. We read our Bibles. We do all kinds of things like that.

We help old ladies across the street and we serve meals to the homeless. And those are all fine things. But they're not the most important thing. You see, the most important thing is, do you love God? I mean, do you really love him?

You see, only you can answer that for yourself. David found the missing cord. He loves God. Adeline Proctor in her poem said that even though she longed to hear the missing cord, she said, I'm likely never to hear it again until I get to heaven.

Well, don't let that be your experience. I guarantee you one thing, that what will fill your heart when you step from this life into the next, from in our presence to being in his presence, whenever that happens, you're going to experience an all-consuming, completely satisfying, absolutely overwhelming love for the God who loves you. I think you're going to feel it in a way you've never felt it before. I think one of the saddest things I hear so often from Christians, and I understand the reason for it, but so often we say, I want to get to heaven, I can't wait to get to heaven to see that person I love. My mom, you see my dad, my spouse, my child, and I understand that, but I wonder, what should I really long for? You see, what should my heart really long for?

I'm going to go face to face with the God I love. With all my heart and all my mind, you see, all my soul and all my strength, you don't have to wait for heaven to experience that. Loving God is the most important thing you'll ever do in your life. The Lord will test your love for him, not so that he'll know, but so that you'll know. And to love God is to love his word, and the Lord blesses those who love him.

The missing cord of life is to love God the way he loves you. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .