Why do you breathe?

Where is your hope?

What do you live for?


To Worship, to live a generous life, to follow Jesus.

To play sport, to watch sport

To spend, to build up stuff, fill the garage

To look after your kids

Passion. What do you live for?

On Saturday night we went to the final game for the Air NZ Cup. Waikato and Wellington were playing. It was a huge game the atmosphere was electric. It was passionate. The noise was overwhelming.

It was an experience where you were hit with the raw emotion and the fact that Waikato won was also a highlight. Confirming that the Waikato is the best place in NZ.

What is Passion::
1. intense emotion: intense or overpowering emotion such as love, joy, hatred, or anger

Passion in bible:: several translations

Pathos translates to ‘evil desire’

Pathein refers to Christs suffering and death. Else where translated as suffering
Acts1:3
3After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
Heb 13:12
12And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

Passion can be pretty crazy, for example Rugby last night, out of control, exciting, wild emotion.

What about the Passion that Jesus showed us. "Pathein" ("to suffer") the suffering he went through so he could win the battle of the Kingdoms.

This passion had a focus, it was to see us connect with God again.

In Isaiah 53: (700 BC) it describes what Jesus in his "passion" would achieve for us.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, (rebellion)
he was crushed for our iniquities; (sins)
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, (be whole)
and by his wounds we are healed. (be healed)

Then we see this worked out in the gospels. In Matt 27 we see the conclusion of Isaish 53. We see Jesus mocked, flogged, humiliated, mocked by the religious leaders and finally crucified.

The Death of Jesus
Matt 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi,[c] lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"[d]

Then out of that passion he was raised the battle won.

In the end I think it can be easy to loose sight of what this life is about. Why do we breathe? Houses, cars, family, work, study can suddenly drown out the passion of Jesus that he has called us to live. He had a heart that was after his sheep, he would passionately and selflessly do all he could to see the sheep saved. Remember in Jesus’s final conversations with Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Jesus passion is for people.

He wants us to share his passion. A passion that is not all about its own pleasure but is selfless and after the good of others. It may mean we share in his suffering.

Phil 1
29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him

1 Peter 1
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

These verses show us that passionately following Jesus will result in some hard times.

But the great thing is that he walks through this with us, He is:

The God of All Comfort
2 Cor 1
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

Unlike Jesus we have him to walk through this suffering with us. To comfort us and to motivate us to be patient in the struggle of showing his passion to the people around us.

So after a night of great rugby I feel the challenge to be a people that are passionate followers of Jesus that live a life of true “passion” (Pathein).