A story on the theme of 1 John 3.16-24

Theme: Sometimes it hurts to love sacrificially...at least for a while.

Change the names and genders and parental configurations as works best for your context.

Josh looked up to Michael. He had to because Michael was a head taller than him. But that wasn’t the only reason. Josh looked up to Michael because he liked him so much and wanted to be like him. Michael was strong and fast at games. He could remember lots and figure things out. He was kind to all the little kids and did things with Josh and his friends, even when he didn’t have to. He was a class ahead of Josh in kids’ classes at church. But the biggest reason that Josh liked Michael was that he got Michael’s hand-me-downs. That meant that when Michael out grew his clothes, Michael’s mom handed them to Josh’s mom and because Josh was shorter than Michael the clothes kind of got handed down.

They were the coolest clothes that Josh had. Josh’s mom just bought Josh regular clothes. Whoever bought Michael’s clothes bought cool clothes. Usually Josh’s favorite shirt or sweatshirt or jacket was one he had gotten from Michael. He couldn’t wait to empty the bag of Michael’s clothes when his mom brought it home. When his mom brought home clothes from the store, Josh never put them on until he had to, but with Michael’s clothes, he usually tried them on as they came out of the bag. One of his all time favorites was a 49ers jacket.

Sometimes the clothes were too big and Josh would have to wait a while before he could grow into them, but lots of times he could start wearing them right away. It was really fun when he wore something to church and Michael recognized it and told him how cool he looked in it.

When Josh outgrew his clothes, there was no one he knew to give them to. All the kids a few years younger at church were girls -- who certainly didn’t want his old clothes -- except for maybe that 49ers jacket. So when Josh outgrew his clothes, his mom put them in a bag and they went with the mission teams to Mexico when the group went to work at the orphanage.

That was okay with Josh. He didn’t feel bad. He had usually forgotten about those clothes that he wasn’t wearing anymore. That was until a new family came to church. They had a boy named Adam who was about as much younger than Josh as Josh was to Michael. Josh’s mom told Josh that they might give some of the clothes he had outgrown to Adam as hand-me-downs. Josh said that sounded okay. He didn’t care much about them because he was more interested in the next bag of hand-me-downs that he was about to get from Michael.

But that all changed when he came to church one Sunday and saw Adam wearing that old favorite 49ers jacket. Suddenly he was very sorry that his mom had given his old clothes to Adam and sulked the whole time he was at church and even on the way home. He wasn’t mean to Adam, but he wasn’t nice to him either. On the way home, his dad asked him why he was moping and Josh said that he didn’t want to say. He was just going to mope. His mom and dad finally got it out of him that he was mad at them because they had given away his old clothes. His mom asked if he hadn’t noticed how proud Adam was to be wearing that 49ers jacket and how he even saw Michael go over to Adam and tell him that it used to be his and he thought it looked pretty cool on Adam. That made Josh even madder. Now he was not only going to lose his clothes, but he was going to have to share his friend. This was turning out to be a pretty bad deal.

Well, Josh got used to seeing Adam in the Michael-to-Josh-to-Adam hand-me-down clothes, but he wasn’t really happy about it. I wonder how you would feel? Then one day he came into his room and found his mom going through his dresser drawers and picking out clothes and putting them in a bag. He knew immediately where that bag was going --- to Adam -- and he got pretty upset. He yelled at his mom and he threw down the car he had in his hand and stomped around in his room. He was particularly upset when he saw a pair of pants that had been his favorites. They weren’t even pants that he had gotten from Michael. When he told his mom that she couldn’t give those away, she said that he never wore them any more because they didn’t fit him. They were too small. He said that, “No! They were not too small.” So his mom ask him to put them on. He did. Or he tried to. Hmmm, they were a little tight, but he slowly squeezed into them. He felt something like a quarter in one of the pockets and he put his hand in that pocket to see if it was a quarter, but he couldn’t get his hand down to the bottom of the pocket to feel if it was. He looked at the bottoms of the pants and they ended about where his socks started. Maybe they were a little tight, but they were still his favorites and he wanted to keep them. Then his mom accidentally, I think, dropped a sock on the floor near Josh. She asked Josh if he would do her a favor and pick up the sock. When he bent over to pick up the sock --- rrrriiippp --- his pants split in back so wide that you could read the label on his underpants. At first he got kind of angry and then he started to smile like he did whenever any of his friends at school ripped their pants and then he started to laugh and then he couldn’t stop and he laughed so hard he fell on the floor and ripped them even more which made him laugh so hard he couldn’t catch him breath. And about that time, he changed his mind (and his heart) and thought that he’d like to have Adam look forward to getting his hand-me-downs as much as he looked forward to getting Michael’s hand-me-downs. 

The next Sunday when he got into the car to go to church, he saw a shopping bag of clothes. And on top of the bag was that pair of favorite pants of his that his mom had sewn back up. He hoped that Adam would like those pants as much as he had, except for the ripping part and he hoped that he’d have the chance to tell Adam how cool he looked in them. And he hoped that Adam might look up to him like he looked up to Michael. He didn’t feel hurt any more.