185. Rock Goes The Gospel - Oasis "Live Forever"

"Live Forever" is a song Written by Noel Gallagher, the song was released as the third single from their debut album Definitely Maybe (1994) on 8 August 1994, just prior to that album's release. Noel Gallagher started writing this in 1991 when he was a roadie for The Inspiral Carpets. It helped convince his brother Liam to let him join his band, Oasis. The melody is based on The Rolling Stones' "Shine A Light" from Exile on Main St. The part Noel took was from the chorus: "May the good Lord Shine a Light on you." Noel wrote it in his flat in Manchester using the melody from the song. He took it to the band and they rehearsed it once and played it that night at a gig. This is one of the most enduring songs in England, but it was never a hit in America. Oasis never came close to matching their UK success in the States. The lyrics are partly a tribute to Gallagher's mother. She was an avid gardener, and her garden is mentioned in the song.Liam Gallagher told Q magazine October 2008 that this is his favorite Oasis song. He explained: "I think the words still mean something powerful. You talk about Oasis capturing a spirit, and I think that song is how a lot of people feel when they're down on their luck. I think I first heard it in the Boardwalk in Manchester when our kid (Noel Gallagher) was trying it out. Even when we're starting it now I always feel like we're going to perform our best version of it. It makes me think of me mam. And it's the song that makes me feel I have the best job in the band. I may not have written it but I get to sing it. It's weird cos it's outlasted other tunes."

Maybe I don't really wanna know
How your garden grows
'Cause I just wanna fly
Lately did you ever feel the pain
In the morning rain
As it soaks you to the bone

Maybe I just wanna fly
Want to live I don't wanna die
Maybe I just wanna breath
Maybe I just don't believe
Maybe you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever

I said, maybe I don't really wanna know
How your garden grows
'Cause I just wanna fly
Lately did you ever feel the pain
In the morning rain
As it soaks you to the bone

Maybe I will never be
All the things that I wanna be
Now is not the time to cry
Now's the time to find out why
I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever

Maybe I don't really wanna know
How your garden grows
'Cause I just wanna fly
Lately did you ever feel the pain
In the morning rain
As it soaks you to the bone

Maybe I just wanna fly
Want to live I don't wanna die
Maybe I just wanna breath
Maybe I just don't believe
Maybe you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever

Gonna live forever [5x]

They say that love and romance never dies and in this song this is a truth that comes through the lyrics. Sung by Liam but written by Noel "Live Forever" is a classic combination of great rock music and love and romance. A powerful combination in the hands of the Gallagher brothers. They know how to grab the attention and keep it with songs like this. This morning our devotional passage is a classic passage from John's gospel and is reputed to be the passage that is the quoted passage in the bible.

The common theme between the passage and the Gallagher brothers song "Live Forever"and John 3:16 is a simple one. It's a theme that weaves it way through the decades of rock and one that surfaces in the scripture as one of the big picture themes. Eternal life is spoken about by Jesus on this occasion to Nicodemus on of Israel's finest teachers, who come to Jesus by night to get a bit closer, to find out a bit more.

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

Sung by Whitney Houston in the film "The Bodyguard"  this song is a classic. It conveys the truth of John 3:16.  Before reading on, stop and let this phrase flood your soul: Jesus loves me, and Jesus loves you. He loves you with all of your struggles, and issues. He has loved you through the issues and trials, the failures, and the grief. He waits patiently for you to come to him, because He truly loves you. John 3:16 is the best known verse in the world and like the song, familiarity with the words often mean that its truth can be overlooked: What would it mean for you if you believed this enough to live like someone who is loved by God? And what would living like you are loved look like? How would this reality affect the way you pray?

Jesus’s conversation with the pharisee Nicodemus – the most famous conversation in the Bible. John has more to say to us here than to describe God’s love and the matter of our conversion [in John 3:1-21]. The conversation with Nicodemus is a model conversation, a paradigm if you will, of Jesus bringing the light of God to one who is captive in darkness. John has an interest in how Christ’s work extends to those in darkness even though he is “the light.” He speaks to Nicodemus at night. That is, Jesus must step into darkness itself in order to redeem those captive to it. This notion reminds me of Jesus’ saying in Mark 2:17: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.” The Call of God to Eternal life. The Call of God to "Live forever"

God is not demanding some moral or religious preparation from us that makes us interesting and acceptable to him. On the contrary, his mission is to enter the darkness and find us… Of course when Jesus challenges Nicodemus that he must be “born again/from above” [3:3], he is making a fundamental statement about life. That is, humanity is broken beyond all repair. God’s work in the world is not a question of fixing the part, but rebuilding the whole. It is described comprehensively as nothing short of another birth… As Augustine once taught, the problem with humanity is not that we sin, but that we are in a state of sin that needs a comprehensive solution. Nicodemus, then, and everyone in Jerusalem (2:23)—as well as everyone in the world (2:25)—lives with this infirmity…Get this dealt with the Jesus way and Eternal life is a guarantee.

The transformation offered to Nicodemus also opens the question of the nature of true religion. That  religion is not necessarily a matter of personal knowledge or ethical behaviour. Nor is it adherence to religious traditions, no matter how virtuously they may make us feel. Jesus is claiming that true spirituality is not discovering some ember buried within the human soul and fanning it to flame. It is not uncovering a morality that is hidden by decades of dust and corruption. It is not a “horizontal” experience that takes up the materials available around us in the world and tries to tease us to live better. Rather, Jesus claims, true religion is “vertical.” It has to do not with the human spirit, but with God’s Spirit. It is a foreign invasion of the first order. True religion unites humanity with God’s powerful Spirit, who overwhelms, transforms, and converts (in the full meaning of the word) Our role in this transformation is belief (3:16, 18), and yet it is a belief that is aided by God’s work within us since we live in the darkness and have our spiritual capacities handicapped by sin… Eternal life in us 90% God and 10% us.

Will we step out of the darkness, out of the world, out of death, and place our [trust] on the truth of what Jesus says and who he is? This is how we "Live Forever" this is how we receive "Eternal Life" this is how we take Jesus at his word. God Loves us............end of Story.  It's to lean fully on Jesus. This is what belief is, do let our full weight lean on Jesus, it's not mental assent but simple faith, believe and you will have eternal life.