What Does It Really Mean to Be Famous?

When asked to identify the most important commandment in all of Scripture, “Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37–39).

In two sentences, Jesus narrowed His entire mission to one word: love. We can discuss the nine fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3–17), or break down every definition of love mentioned throughout the Bible, but to know Jesus is to know love. He is love. He embodies love. Love is His nature.

Think about the families you admire and respect. You witness them from afar and either want to hang out with them or want to be like them. Not because of their money, jobs, or social standing, but because of how they live, the way they care for one another, and how they all show up to serve others. You love how you feel after spending time with them. These families don’t announce their mission and values. But when you are with them, you know they embody something different than the rest of the world has to offer.

That’s the beauty of placing your identity in Christ—you’re set free to change not just your family but to also inspire the world around you. You can find what makes your family greater than the sum of its parts and give your kids a purpose bigger than themselves.

Take time as a family to pray through your mission for a few days. Use your dinner conversations to talk about what you embody as a family, and to identify ways you can carry out your mission together.

How does your family influence others? By participating in local youth leagues, caring for those in need, or showering others with fresh vegetables every weekend as you build your family produce business?

You may have picked up this study with the intent of learning how to be celebrated as a parent or spouse. The object of fame, at least the pursuit of it, is about us. We want to be known and celebrated. But if in our pursuit of fame we continue making everyone else’s story about us, we might be famous (for all the wrong reasons), but not celebrated.

In describing C. S. Lewis’ perspective on humility, author and pastor Tim Keller writes, “If we were to meet a truly humble person…we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble...The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less." [i]

Therein lies the hidden blessing of fame—the privilege of showing up in the world of another human being to set them free with the gift of love—from Jesus.

[i] Timothy Keller, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy (Leyland, England: 10Publishing, 2012), 31–32.