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.’
So, can we change God’s commandment to love GOD with all our heart and soul to love JESUS with all our heart? Perhaps it’s a bit of a simplification. But this is a story for children. I think it’s fine. I agree with Melissa Kruger. We should love Jesus with all our heart.
That should be our BIG DREAM, our DREAM OF ALL DREAMS, for our children. It’s our dream for our children because we’ve already decided that it’s OUR passion. It’s the most important thing of all for US.
I could go on to talk about WHY we should love God or HOW we should love God. But if I did, this would turn into a very long talk!
However, I’d like us to think how we’re doing when it comes to making God’s first commandment our great passion, our overriding goal.
Do we do that? People who are not Christians certainly don’t. They want to do things their way. But I suspect that quite a few people who say they’re Christians don’t really accept this commandment either.
Why do I say that? Let me give you some reasons.
There’s a Christian website called Bible Gateway. It’s the most-visited Christian website in the world. It has more than 25 million visitors per month. Many people go to Bible Gateway to look up a Bible passage. Bible Gateway has a list of the 100 verses which are looked up most often. Matthew 22:37 tells us what God’s GREAT and FIRST commandment is. That sounds rather important! Where do you suppose it comes in the top 100? First? In first place is John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ Most of us know that verse! Well perhaps God’s GREAT and FIRST commandment is in second place? No, Matthew 22:37 doesn’t come in second place either. In fact, Matthew 22:37 doesn’t come ANYWHERE in the top 100 most popular verses! What are we to conclude? It looks very much as though Christians aren’t getting their heads around what Jesus says is Commandment Number One.
Here's a second example to show what I mean.
Many years ago, before Priscilla and I got married, I joined a missionary society. Before the society would accept me as a missionary, I had to spend three and a half months with them doing what a candidate course. They would give me some training and get to know me and then decide if I could be a missionary. The missionary society’s headquarters at the time was an enormous mansion which had once belonged to the Duke of Somerset. There was a lot going on there. The international leadership operated from there, they had a media centre and a printing press, there were missionaries passing through and there were people like me, prospective missionaries who were going through training. At some point I was given a handbook which stated the missionary society’s principles and practices. I was told that at the end of the course I would have to say that I agreed with what was in the handbook. The handbook stated that the highest goal of a member of the missionary society should be evangelism.
I came to the end of the candidate course and it was time to be interviewed. I came into a room with about 30 of the missionary society’s staff. I was asked if I accepted the organization’s principles and practices. What would you have said? I told the group that there was one thing in the handbook which I couldn’t accept. I could not make evangelism my highest goal. I told the group, ‘Jesus tells us that Command No.1 is to love God and Command No.2 is to love our neighbour. Therefore, I can’t sign up to something which states that Goal No.1 should be evangelism.’
This caused quite a bit of consternation. However, somehow, the missionary society accepted me anyway.
What do you think? If Jesus says that the great and first commandment is to love God then can we make something else our top priority? I don’t think so!
Let me go on to a third piece of evidence. I went to another website. This one had a list of various American churches’ mission statements. The churches had mission statement such as, ‘Connecting people to Jesus and one another’, ‘We exist to make Heaven more crowded’, ‘Helping people find their way back to God.’ The website had mission statements from 15 churches. But NOT ONE OF THOSE CHURCHES made what Jesus said was the great and first commandment THEIR mission statement! I just can’t get my head around this. If Jesus says that the great and first commandment is to love God, how can we make our priority something else?
When I say that the great and first commandment is to love God, that’s a simplification. Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ We must love God – and let’s not forget how passionately we must love him.
In Melissa Kruger’s story, the parents’ ‘dream of all dreams’ is for their children to love Jesus with all their hearts. That’s what Jesus wants. It’s also the right thing for us to want. WE should love Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. It should be our ‘dream of all dreams’ for our children. And not just for our children but for our parents, our brothers and sisters, our friends and the people we work with and mix with too. It’s what Jesus wants so it should be what we want.
Let me conclude.
Do we know what God’s greatest commandment is? Is it deeply engrained into our psyches? Is it OUR greatest passion? Is it OUR ‘dream of all dreams’ that our children should love Jesus with all their hearts? And does that dream extend beyond our children to others around us, that they too love Jesus with all their hearts? That is certainly Jesus’ passion!
What will people say of us at our funeral? ‘He loved fishing’? ‘She loved cooking?’ I hope very much that people will say something different about all of us.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 14th April 2024, 10.30 a.m. service.
