Summary: It’s the gift that no one wants. No, I’m not talking about the socks and underwear that you use to get for Christmas as a kid before the “good” presents were revealed. I’m not talking about the “dad tie” your kids got you for Father’s Day that kind of embarrasses you to wear. And I’m not even talking about the barely edible breakfast your kid’s made and presented to you for breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day last year. I’m talking about pain.<br> It’s no secret that we live in a world today that tries to avoid pain at all cost. Just take any trip to your local CVS or Walgreens and you will find entire aisles devoted to relieving any twinge of pain we might be having. Have a headache? Pop a Tylenol. Experiencing a little uncomfortable indigestion? Grab a Tums. Have a little swollenness in your left ankle? Take an Advil. And while on many days I’m thankful I have access to these incredibly helpful medicines in my life, I do wonder if the aisles devoted to all this resource might also be telling us something about ourselves and the world we live in. Is it possible that we’ve gotten really good that numbing and avoiding pain in our lives? And what might we be missing out on if that is true?<br> What we might be missing out on is passion. Today when we think about passion we often simply relate it to just another way to talk about the things that excite us. And while this might be helpful in some ways it also undermines true passion in other ones. See, passion is more than an “intense feeling”. In fact, hundreds of years ago what passion actually referred to was intense pain. We call the last week of Jesus’ life where He was tortured and killed the Passion of Christ. Even the word itself comes from the Latin word for suffering.<br> The truth is our greatest passions are often birthed out of our greatest pain. And true passion is what motivates us to keep moving even in the midst of pain. Unfortunately today we’ve dropped the pain piece and in the end the things we most often say we are passionate about are just simply things like golf and gardening.<br> This week we continue our journey through the book of Acts. In the last few week’s we’ve focused on the life of Paul as we’ve watched the life and impact of a man who God used to change the world and asked how God might use us to do the same. Already we have seen how Paul was a man who interpreted his story and lived in his gifting. This week we will see him as a man of passion—pursuing God’s purpose through the pain of his life. It’s this life that demands an answer to this question in our own lives–What are you passionate about?<br> DOWNLOADS<br> <br> SEE IT // BE IT<br> (WEEKLY COMMUNITY GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE)<br> DATE: March 19, 2017 // Title: Passion //<br> Scripture: Acts 19:17-38<br> ARRIVAL / SOCIAL TIME 15-20 minutes<br><br> Spend the first 15 minutes or so of your time together catching up and socializing with one another. Also find time to catch up together on how the assignments from last week turned out.<br> SERMON REVIEW 5-10 minutes<br> This week we continued our study through the book of Acts. We journeyed once again alongside the life of Paul to see the kinds of things that made him such a force of impact in his world. Already we have seen how Paul was a man who interpreted his story and lived into his gifting. Today, as we looked at Paul’s emotional speech to the Ephesians elders, we saw how Paul was also a man of passion. This passion was birthed from conviction in the midst of pain and became contagious to those around him; the passion combined with his story and gifting to give him a sense of calling. As we seek to become the kinds of people who make an impact in our own world, it is necessary for us to think about how our own story, gifting, and passion will need to be combined as well. In this way, we stop being inoculated with the gospel and instead become people who have the gospel seep out in all we do and say<br>
