Our Greatest Passion

NOTE:

This was a family service. Early in the service I tell the children’s story ‘Wherever you go, I want you to know’ by Melissa Kruger. You can download the images for the story free from the Good Book Company. I made them into a PowerPoint to accompany the story.

EARLY IN THE SERVICE:

Today is a family service. In family services, we include some children’s songs in the mix. We have a children’s story. The children don’t go out as they usually do, and I do a shorter talk than usual which is based on the children's story. Today’s children’s story is about what we’re passionate about, what we care most about. I’d like us to take a moment to think what WE are passionate about.

At some point, most of us are going to die. There will be a funeral and people will say all sorts of nice things about us – we hope! What do you hope people will say about you? Do you hope they’ll say, ‘He loved fishing’? Or ‘She loved cooking?’ Or ‘He loved the church?’ Or do you hope they’ll say something else? What do you love? What are you passionate about? Take a moment to think about it.

BEFORE READING THE STORY:

I’m going to read this story but I’d like some participation. Three times in the story someone says, ‘Whatever you do, wherever you go, I have a BIG DREAM I want you to know.’ What I’d like you to do is when I say, ‘Whatever you do, wherever you go’ then you say, ‘I have a BIG DREAM I want you to know.’

THE TALK:

I really enjoyed the book I read to you. The author is an American woman called Melissa Kruger. She has three children. At the start of the story, a mum is talking to her daughter. She tells her daughter, ‘Listen, little one, I want you to know, I have a BIG dream wherever you go.’

As we continue through the story, we meet other mums and dads talking to their children and they’re all saying the same thing. Three times in the story someone says, ‘Whatever you do, wherever you go, I have a BIG DREAM I want you to know.’ But what are these people’s big dreams for their children? Finally, close to the end of the book, someone tells their child their dream, their dream of all dreams. They say, ‘I pray you love Jesus with ALL of your heart.’ Then they add, ‘Whatever you do, that the right place to start.’

That is THEIR dream, their passion, what they want more than anything else.

Have they got it right? Is this what parents should want, that their children love Jesus with all of their heart?

When we’re looking for answers to questions like this, we go to the Bible. The verses which give us the answer most clearly are Matthew 22:37-38. Jesus is speaking and he says, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Then Jesus adds, ‘This is the great and first commandment.’

Jesus is saying that out of all God’s commandments, THIS is THE GREAT and FIRST COMMANDMENT. Out of all the things God might want us to do, THIS is top of God’s list for us. Does that mean that it must be top of OUR list? Is that what we should be most passionate about?

Most people don’t think so. Most people think to themselves, ‘This is MY life. I can live it as I want!’ I’ve heard that at the funerals of people who aren’t Christians the song that is most often played is the song by Frank Sinatra, ‘I did it my way’.

When people aren’t well, they go to a doctor. The doctor tells them they need to change their diet and do various exercises. But many people don’t do what the doctor tells them to do. They want to do things their way.

But Christians aren’t like that. Christians say, ‘It isn’t MY life anymore. I belong to Jesus. Jesus is my Lord and king. HE gets to say what my greatest priority is. If Jesus says that God’s first and great commandment is to love him with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind then that’s what I’m going to take as my greatest priority. THAT is what I am going to be passionate about.

But one of you may say, ‘But Simon! Jesus told us to love GOD with all our heart and soul and so on. But the people in the story wants their children to love JESUS with all their heart. Is that the same?

Let’s think about it.

We are to love God. And Jesus IS God. We believe that God consists of God the Father, Jesus – the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit. They are ‘three in one’. They are three persons but the same being. Jesus told his disciples that when they saw him, they saw God the Father. Similarly, if we love Jesus, we love God the Father too. Jesus told his disciples, ‘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.’