Sermon for Guitar by Greg Presley

SERMON FOR GUITAR;
By GREG PRESLEY

Greg Presley’s my name and music’s my game;
This thing on my lap is called a guitar,
When I got I thought it would make me a star!
Then I found that there was a hitch,
I’d have to have talent to really get rich.

I wanted to be a cowboy
And ride the range like Gene and Roy
I even learned to ride a horse (off and on)
But in contests of will,
The horse always won!

I was riding today, and true to my luck,
I fell off the horse and lay there in the muck.
My foot was caught in the stirrup
And I was flat on my back.
The horse was still running and alas and alack,
I might have been hurt trying to ride and sing,
But the manager of Wal-mart came out and
Unplugged the thing!

I have played the guitar since I was 12. My Dad taught me some chords when my brother went off to WWII and left his guitar at home. I played to accompany my dad while he played the fiddle. We played Hill-billy music. They call it bluegrass now. As I grew older I played the guitar to accompany myself when I would sing. That’s what Gene and Roy did, you know. I began to play with bands around in South Alabama when I was only 13. It was country music--4 chord country.

I guess I never thought of the guitar as an instrument for church music. Later on, I found that it fit well with country gospel but I really didn’t care much for that. I just didn’t believe that I could get my guitar sanctified.

But then, in the 60’s the guitar came from the hill-billy twang to the modern sounds of the day. History was repeating itself for once upon a time the court Jester strummed and sang his song of mirth and protest. With the folk singer of today we have a modern model of the court jester. The troubadour of today is bearded, dressed as a jester, and he sings songs of love and war, peace and hope, sin and protest. But mostly he sings of brotherly love. When I was a boy “Long-hair musician” meant something entirely different.

The youth of today tells us that times have changed. The recent generations are different. They need a new music. They need their own church service with their own music. Our churches are trying to accommodate them by having “contemporary services” and we finding that we have two separate congregations.

Young people of today tell us that all has changed. “We’re different!” “We have a message” and youth truly has a message. I’ve been listening to this message with the ear of a guitarist and the ear of a pastor. I think I’ve got the message. The problem is, though, my age, my Theological training, and my background as a musician and entertainer makes this new message sound strangely familiar.

You sing of love. Not love like Hames, Sinatra, and Crosby sang of but you sing of a universal love; love for everybody. It’s a good song. I heard it sung in the cotton fields of Georgia by the blacks who dreamed of a universal love before you were born!
The words were different, though. Those black workers sang of a love prompted in man by a relationship to God.

You sing of despair. I heard your song in the 30s sung by men and women whose stomachs were empty and whose jobs were gone. I sang your song of despair when my dad had no job and my mom worked for four dollars and a half per week to feed 5 hungry children.

You sing of freedom. This song has changed often in the past 5 decades. We sang of freedom in the 40’s longing for the lights to go on on Broadway. We sang your song in the 50’s longing for the end to the Korean war. We sang your songs of freedom when Viet Nam took so many of our brave young people. You sang during the fight to save Kuwait from Sadaam. You sang and still sing for freedom from fear of terrorism.
An older version was sung many years ago ”You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (Jno 8:32)

The songs of our young people have a message. We should listen. Youth should sing. Sing a song for today. Sing a song of love!

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
That’s the only thing that there’s just not plenty of,
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone”

Some wag has said that love is a misunderstanding between two fools. Perhaps that is right in some cases but we should discuss this thing we call love. Who do you love? Young people today are likely to say they love everybody. Like who?

The person who says he loves everybody often doesn’t love anybody. As you sing of Love, please remember these things:

1. Love must be particularized to have meaning. Love for everybody is worthless unless it is shown in a love for somebody. Love is something you do, it’s a verb and it must have an object. Everybody is too general to be a good object of the verb.

The Bible, beginning with the 10 commandments, often begins a discourse or a lesson by revealing a relationship with God which results in a relationship with our fellow man. The first commandments deal with God and man; the rest deal with man to man. The Beatitudes do the same. There is a vertical relationship between God and man that, when established become the conduit through which the Love of God flows to man until he is filled to overflowing. Only then can he truly love his fellow man as the Love of God flows to him and through him to others.

So, The source of love is God. The object of love is the person you choose to love. You can’t love everybody. You have to love some somebody. You can’t love anybody unless you have received that love you wish to share. You can’t give what you haven’t got anymore than you can come back from where you haven’t been!

But, limitless love is available to you. The sweetest love story is summed up in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Wonderful it is that Jesus cared for me,
Coming from His home on high--
Into pain and sorrow, poverty and woe,
On Cal’vry’s cruel cross for me to die.

Oh, what love; that He should die for me,
Saving grace thus to supply for me.
Oh what love! Oh what love!
Ever more I’ll sing it--Oh what love!

Who do you love? Do you have a line of supply from the source of real love? The best way to bring peace, love, and freedom to the world is to establish that vertical relationship to God by accepting what God did for you in Jesus Christ. Jesus died for you that you could receive God’s love. If you will accept what God did for you in the death, burial, and resurection of His Son Jesus it will not change your song but it will give a Divine quality and meaning. The melody will be more tender. The rhythm will be more sure. The song will possess you and keep you for eternity.

Sing with me:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of,
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone!