One of the silly love songs that my wife and I laugh about occasionally when we lift listen to the oldies station is the song, ”I will follow you.” You may or may not be familiar with it but it is a 1963 song written by Ricky Nelson. Some of the lyrics are…
I will follow you
Follow you wherever you may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep me away
Away from my love!
My wife and I were in the car recently when the song came on the station. We were laughing it how sort of ridiculous it sounded. I certainly believe in true love and I believe deeply that when we fall in love and get married we are to follow our partner and stay with them, committing ourself to wherever they go. But the oldies love song is a bit much for both of us. It was a hit for sure in the 1960’s, but most of us these days would not express quite this way. The song seems to depict a mindless, aimless person who would sell their soul and every aspect of their life in order to follow their partner whoever they were and wherever they went no matter what. It screams out a life pledged to rearrange everything because of their love for the other. (Ricky Nelson wrote it and recorded it famously, and Peggy March covered as a female voice — this is just a fun fact for all you trivial pursuit fans). Maybe it’s true love, but if I were her father, I would have her think deeply about that kind of commitment.
This coming Sunday I am going to teach out of the lesson between two major events in the Gospel story. The first event we taught last Sunday, the “Confession of Peter” that Jesus was the Messiah (Mark 8:27-30. Next week I am going to teach the very famous “Transfiguration of Jesus” story in March 9:2-13. But this Sunday I will be teaching the story that is between those two monumental stories. Essentially this story tells us this:
Who HE is, changes who I am
If we can honestly profess Jesus Christ as the Messiah – the Savior – the Lord of all, then everything about my life is redirected, changed, altered, and reshaped. For too many of us we have come to a belief that Jesus is here to save us from hell, but beyond that there’s not much else He does, nor not much else we have to do.
I encourage you to read this passage carefully before you come to worship with the LifeWay family. The direct passage to focus on is Mark 8:31-38.
- Who is He? Mark 8:31-33
- Who am I and what I to do in response to who He is? Mark 8:34-38.
As sappy as the oldies love song is, (and I am NOT suggesting that we use the song in worship), there is a spiritual truth in that song about how we are deeply changed when we begin to follow Him.
See you Sunday morning
