A Love Supreme, Part 2

In 1964 on the album titled “Love Supreme,” the late, great, jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, in what is perhaps his greatest and possibly the greatest ever musical masterpiece to be produced, packaged elegantly a suite of four selections or parts. I call it a suite because the album centers on one concept being love: God’s love and our love for God. And the four parts of the album are four rooms within the same suite.

Illustrate: Have you ever stayed in a hotel suite? Nikki, our kids, and I prefer the Embassy Suites. Multiple interior rooms within the same hotel room.

So A Love Supreme is a suite with four parts (four interior rooms within one big room): "Acknowledgement", "Resolution", "Pursuance", and "Psalm”.

Coltrane plays tenor saxophone on all parts. A music critic by the name of Kahn in 2002 wrote I quote: “that the album was intended to represent a struggle for purity, an expression of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that the musician's talent comes from a higher power.”

In the fourth and final movement, "Psalm", Coltrane performs what he calls a "musical narration". Lewis Porter calls it as a "wordless recitation".

The devotional is included in the liner notes.

Coltrane "plays" the words of the poem on saxophone but doesn't speak them. Some scholars have suggested that this performance is a homage to the sermons of African-American preachers.

If you don’t mind, I would like to sample a little bit of this poem for your hearing

A Love Supreme

I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee O Lord. It all has to do with it. Thank you God. Peace. There is none other. God is. It is so beautiful. Thank you God. God is all. Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses. Thank you God. In You all things are possible. We know. God made us so. Keep your eye on God. God is. He always was. He always will be. No matter what...it is God. He is gracious and merciful. It is most important that I know Thee. Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions – time – all related ... all made from one ... all made in one. Blessed be His name. Thought waves – heat waves-all vibrations – all paths lead to God. Thank you God.

His way ... it is so lovely ... it is gracious. It is merciful – thank you God. One thought can produce millions of vibrations and they all go back to God ... everything does. Thank you God. Have no fear ... believe ... thank you God. The universe has many wonders. God is all. His way ... it is so wonderful. Thoughts – deeds – vibrations, etc. They all go back to God and He cleanses all. He is gracious and merciful...thank you God. Glory to God ... God is so alive. God is. God loves.

The poem (and, in his own way, Coltrane's solo) ends with the cry, "Elation. Elegance. Exaltation. All from God. Thank you God. Amen.”

It is with this type of perspective that we find Moses in the book of Deuteronomy delivering one of his final messages to God’s people. The man of God Moses has wrapped his opening sermon to the book of Deuteronomy under one concept, that being, God faithfully and steadfastly loves His people. And God calls His people to love Him.

Moses has taken the people back down memory lane for the first 5 chapters of Deuteronomy:

God had delivered them out of slavery

God has contended with them in the wilderness

That’s what Israel means:

The name Israel, expressing the concept of wrestling, clinging firmly to God, and overcoming, and God's confirming of his covenant with Jacob, indicates that Israel is to be understood as Jacob's covenant name. The name spoke of his being bound with a bond of life and love to God.

Illustrate: In here today, some of you have and is wrestling with God...

God had led them in the wilderness for 40 years

God had provided them food and clothing

God had shown them grace despite their faithlessness

God had chosen them, for no particular reason except to bless them and deal with the wickedness in the promiseland

God has, God is, and God will keep His promises

God will lead them into the promise land

Transition

God has loved Israel unconditionally

God has shown Israel unmerited mercy, grace, and love

And now God’s calls his people to reciprocate the love

God has initiated the relationship because of His love

And God calls Israel to respond accordingly in love

God’s calls us to a relationship based on love.

Illustrate: Being a relationship based on lust vs. love

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Deuteronomy 6:

Exposition

Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The extent of man’s love for God was to be total. Israel was to love God with her whole being

Speaks to:

The Totality Of Loving God:

With All Your Heart- Affection

In ancient Hebrew psychology the heard was regarded as the seat of the mind and will as well as of a wide range of emotions

With All Your Soul- Focus

The source of life and vitality, or one’s being

With All Your Might- Fight

with all your strength

Abilities

Powers

Application

Practice Love Of God

Worship Properly-

Give Properly-

Show Mercy (towards the poor)-

Follow Justice-

Be Not Presumptuous-

Obey The Word of God!- Deuteronomy 18

Conclusion

As I prepare to close, I go to the Mark text for today

And Jesus said:

Mark 12:29–30 ESV

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

Mind is now broken apart from heart

Because Jesus wants you to remember!

Mark 12:31 ESV

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:31

John 14:15–27 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.