Living in Harmony – Sermon on Romans 12.9-18

Posted on March 22, 2015 by taylormertins

We tried something different in church this week. Instead of the typical ~15 sermon, I broke the church up into 6 groups (each bulletin contained a number between 1-6) and sent them to different rooms throughout the building. Below I have included the directions for the group leaders in addition to the questions used for discussion. After the groups had spent a significant amount of time together, I invited them back into the sanctuary for a brief homily to connect the scripture with our activity.

Living in Harmony

Directions for Group Leaders:

Thank you for agreeing to help facilitate conversation during worship. Below you will find step-by-step instructions to guide each group through their time together. In light of your willingness to help lead I will share with you the reason for our activity, but I ask that you do not share it with your group: Many of us attend church on a regular basis, we see the same familiar faces, and yet we don’t have an intimate knowledge about those we call our brothers and sisters in Christ. Each group will be asking and answering questions in order to learn more about our community. My hope is that we will begin to know more about one another than just where everyone sits in the sanctuary. The quality of the answers should be emphasized over quantity. I would rather you only get to one of the questions and really learn about each other than getting to answer all of them without really soaking up the answers.

Reread the following scripture to set up the activity:
1. Romans 12.9-18
2. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Ask everyone to share their name.
Say: “For the next 15-20 minutes we will be speaking casually with one another about our interests. This is not going to be a densely theological conversation about “the last time you experienced God’s presence” or “sharing moments of great sinfulness from your lives.” Instead it will be focused on what makes you, you. By no means is this mandatory, and if there is a question that you do not want to answer, all you have to say is “pass” and let it move on to the next person. However, if you can answer the questions, it will allow for greater growth and fruitfulness in our church and in our community.”
Below are a list of questions to ask of the group. You may read one aloud and then ask everyone to respond in a circle, or at random (the choice is yours). I have written more questions than you will probably be able to answer in the time allowed but that’s okay. I trust you to know what questions are working and which ones need to be left behind. Emphasis should be placed on giving everyone ample time to respond so that everyone will learn a little bit about everyone else. If a natural conversation begins in response to an answer please allow it to continue so long as it fits with the general nature of the activity. However, if someone becomes long-winded please ask them to conclude so that we can move on to the next person.
Questions:
1. What was the last good movie you saw (on TV or in the Theaters) and why?
2. What is your “go-to” restaurant in Staunton, and what do you usually order?
3. What is one of your most memorable birthday presents? How did you feel when you opened it?
4. If you could have one super-power what would it be, and why?
5. If you could recommend one book for all of your friends to read, what book would it be and why?
6. When was the last time you felt pure joy and what were the circumstances behind it?
7. When you were a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
8. What is your favorite thing to do in the summer and why?
9. If they made a movie of your life, which actor would you want to play you?
10. If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
11. Who is your hero (a parent, celebrity, writer, etc.) and why?
12. What is one thing that you are extremely proud of?
13. If you had a time machine, where and when would you travel?
14. If you could have a conversation with one person from the entire history of the world, who would it be and why?
15. If you had an entire vacation paid for, where would you go and why?
16. What do you think is the greatest invention from your lifetime and why?
Wrapping Up
1. At 11:50 we need everyone back in the sanctuary. When your group comes to a time that naturally allows for a conclusion I ask that you pray the following words out loud, and then lead your group back to the sanctuary:
  1. Prayer: “Almighty God, you know us and have called us by name. In the midst of this community, we give you thanks for everyone in this group. We praise you for providing interests, opinions, and observations. We pray, Lord, that you might instill in each of us the beauty of community. Give us the strength to live in harmony with one another, and allow us to be people who can extend hospitality toward strangers. Amen.

Homily:

I have wanted to do this activity since I arrived at St. John’s. We do such a good job at welcoming and connecting with one another on Sunday mornings, and during other church activities, but I’m not sure how well we really know one another.

I once knew a man who said the loneliest times in his life occurred at 11am every Sunday morning when he was sitting in our packed sanctuary. For years he was a regular worshipper, and for year no one bothered to reach out; no one knew his name, where he was from, or what was going on in his life. Ever since I was appointed here I thought about breaking us into groups to combat the exact type of loneliness that man described.

I waited and waited and then last week something happened that made me realize how desperately we needed to do what we just did.

Our secretary discovered a man standing in our parking lot in the middle of the afternoon and approached to ask if there was anything she could help with. Without intending to, the man began to cry. He said, “I lost my wife a few months ago and today would have been our 49th wedding anniversary. 49 years ago we were standing in this church with hope for the future. These last few months have been the loneliest in my life.”

I don’t want to be part of a church that does not know about a man’s 49th wedding anniversary. I don’t want our sanctuary to be the loneliest place on Sunday mornings. We did not ask and answer the questions today to just learn superficial facts about one another; we did so with the hope that these facts would spark new and lasting relationships. This church should be the place where we combat the terrible forces of loneliness. Amen.

Crucified Faith – Lenten Homily on John 14.1-7

Posted on March 18, 2015 by taylormertins

John 14.1- 7

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life.

I know a lot of people who want the greatest amount of reward for the least amount of effort. They have a faulty perception about how much they deserve based on how much they work.

Its like the guy who lets his grass grow and grow until you can barely see his porch because he only wants to have to mow it once. Or like the woman I recently saw at Food Lion who was using every single finger and both elbows to carry all of her bags to the car instead of making multiple trips. Or like the foolish pastor (cough *Me* cough) who believes that so long as he picks a scripture and prays about it, that God will give him a sermon to preach that will having people jumping and shouting “Amen!”

Sadly, I have come across a number of people (even myself at times) who want God without Jesus. We believe on some level that so long as we show up to church, and live a decent life, that we are doing all that the Lord would have us to do. We want salvation without suffering. We want love without expectations. We want resurrection without crucifixion.

Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him.

The disciples are confused. Jesus tells them that he will go and prepare a place for them because there are many rooms in his Father’s house and they know where he is going. Then Thomas asks the question that all the other disciples are thinking: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus responds with hopeful and frightening words: I am the way.

The destiny in store for Jesus is likewise laid up for his friends, and for us. Those who want to save their life will lose it. If we want to experience the presence of God here and now, we can only do so by following the way, by following Jesus.

Sam Wells, the former dean of Duke Chapel, was appointed to a new church, and wanted to experience every single aspect of its mission. For the first few months he spent a couple of days each week going through the ins and outs of the church as if he was not the pastor; He toured the preschool like a prospective parent with a three-year old; He went to weekly prayer services and sat in the back like a stranger might if they randomly walked in off the street; He stood in line at the food pantry and patiently waited for his turn to receive some food.

One of the last things he needed to experience was the homeless shelter. He had heard that it was frequently attended because they gave out the best food and had the nicest provisions and he wanted to see it with his own eyes and taste it with his own tongue. So, for a few days before the experience, he stopped showering and shaving, he found some of his oldest and rattiest clothes, and prepared to spend a night with others in the basement of the building.

He began by waiting outside in line with everyone else. He tried to keep a low profile, but most of the people spotted his costume immediately. For whatever reason they welcomed him into their little group anyway and spent most of the night talking and learning about one another. He asked about their pasts and what had led them to where they were, most of them had normal lives until some unforeseen circumstance sent them out to the streets.

However, before the night ended one of the men shared an important perspective with the pastor. “We don’t come here for the food or for the warmth,” he said, “we come here because this is the only place where we can be with other people like us. Sure the food and shelter is nice, but the community is what we really need.”

I don’t think Sam would necessarily put it this way, but I believe he encountered the living God in those homeless men and women precisely because he was acting like Jesus. I don’t think Sam actively went out with the hope that he could walk around like Jesus, but in meeting the people where they were he followed the way that Christ set up for us.

Sometimes the hardest part of being a Christian is recognizing that we cannot have resurrection without crucifixion. More often than not we need to crucify a part of our lives before we can meet and encounter the living God.

Maybe we need to crucify our false assumptions about the poor and how they wind up living on the streets. Perhaps we need to crucify our ridiculous prejudices toward people who are of a different sexual orientation. Maybe we need to crucify our faulty self-perceptions. Perhaps we need to crucify our selfish desires to crave our passions. Maybe we need to crucify a program in our church that is no longer giving life to anyone involved. Perhaps we need to crucify our willingness to hold on to a grudge from the distant past. Maybe we need to crucify our love and obsession with money.

Jesus is the way and we have been given the precious opportunity to follow him, even to the cross. If we want to encounter the living God, we can only do so by crucifying our brokenness and seeking out ways to be resurrected here and now. Amen.

Marked and Cleansed – Ash Wednesday Homily on Psalm 51.1-12

Posted on February 18, 2015 by taylormertins

Psalm 51.1-12

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore me to the joy or your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

How would someone know that you’re a Christian? I think this is a very important question for us to ask ourselves on a regular basis. During a normal day, how would anyone know that we affirm Jesus as Lord, that we pray to God the Father, that we believe the Spirit is with us in all things? Maybe you wear a cross around your neck, though even that symbol has become so innocuous to the general culture around us. Maybe you bring your bible with you to work or public places and you are not afraid to spend some time reading from the good book in front of other people. I personally like to wear my clerical collar when I’m out in town because it helps to show others who I am, and frankly it forces me to act like a Christian in public.

When I became a pastor I was so excited to wear my collar for the first time, to walk around Staunton, and let it speak for itself. I imagined the conversations that would begin at one of our local coffee shops: “Sir, would you please pray for my wife, she just received some tough medical news.” … “Do you mind if I pull up a chair and ask some questions? I’ve always wanted to ask a pastor about the miracles from the gospels.” … “I’m new in town, would you be able to help me find a church community?” However, after being here for some time, I can share that most of the time no one notices. I’ve gone to a local bar with the expectation that people would hide their beer bottles behind their backs, but they just keep talking like normal. I’ve been shopping at the grocery store and prepared myself for random questions, but people just keep scanning the aisles on their own. I’ve sat down at a coffee shop with my collar on, and bible open, and almost no one has made mention of my vocation.

That was the case until last week.

I was sitting at a table alone working on a sermon when two women came in, ordered coffee, and sat at the table next to me. I’m not ashamed to admit that I often eavesdrop on the conversations around me. It’s not that I intend to, or have a problem with it, but most of the time the place is quiet enough that its impossible not to hear what people are talking about. I went to grab my headphones, in order to drown out their conversation, but I heard something that peeked my interest: “Being a pastor must be the easiest job in the world”

I decided then that the sermon could wait, this conversation was too good to miss.

One of them continued, “Seriously! They get paid to act like the rest of us. I mean, how hard is it to write a sermon every week and visit old people? Being a Christian is so much harder than being a pastor. It must be the easiest job in the world.”

Without thinking about what I was doing, I stood up, walked over to their table, and said, “You’re absolutely right. Being a Christian is harder than being a pastor. The church has expectations about the way you are supposed to behave, and I get paid to behave appropriately, I am a professional Christian. The only difference is this, everyone knows I’m a Christian, what about you?” I then packed up my things and left.

Today, above all days, is an opportunity for us to be marked and cleansed. In a short while, each of us will be invited forward to have a cross of ashes placed on our foreheads, a sign for us to carry around for the rest of the day. Today, wherever you go, people will know who you really are.

Do you know where the ashes come from? We save some of the palm branches from Palm Sunday, and we burn them down into ashes. The same palms that some of us waved last spring to welcome Jesus in Jerusalem have been placed in the fire, and will now adorn our heads. This is done as a reminder that our shouts of “hosanna!” can quickly turn to “crucify!” I can go from being a well behaved Christian, minding my own business at a coffee shop, to walking over to strangers and letting my passive aggressive side get the better of me. We use these ashes to mark and cleanse ourselves for the coming season of lent.

All of us are sinners, the young and the old, the weak and the strong, we all fall short of God’s glory. This season of lent is an opportunity to turn back to God and reorient our perspectives about the way the world truly works. For the coming weeks our prayers should be for wisdom, for God to purge from us all wrong desires and failures. This is the time for us to be bold in our faithfulness as we enter the community around us. Lent is the time for God to create in us clean hearts, to put new and right spirits within us. We begin here with the ashes, remembering our finitude, so that God might restore us to the joy of salvation, and sustain us with a willing spirit to be faithful in the world.

How would someone know you’re a Christian? Today, everyone will know just by looking at your foreheads. But, the ashes will eventually fade away; the cross will disappear. The challenge for us is to act like it’s still there, to live full lives of discipleship so that everyone might know who we are, and whose we are. Amen.

God With Us – Homily on James 5.13-20

Posted on December 10, 2014 by taylormertins

I was recently asked to speak to a local group of ICM Chaplains about the importance of carrying our faith into the workplace. It was an honor and a privilege to speak with such great chaplains and enjoy an evening of fellowship together. Below is the homily I preached for the occasion.

James 5.13-20

Are any song you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

She walked with a limp and was struggling under the oppressive humidity. Employed by the church as a custodian, the older woman largely kept to herself but you could tell that she was remarkably lonely. I had taken the time to express kind greetings throughout the summer but they never developed into a conversation. I was serving as an intern at a rural church in the deep recesses of Western North Carolina and I spent most of my days exploring the Great Smokey Mountains instead of sitting in my stuffy office reading over my sermons for Sundays.

Her loneliness was palpable enough that I finally decided to do something about it, and one Thursday morning toward the end of my time I invited her to come on hike with me along a creek right outside of town. I had been part of the church long enough to know that the building itself often casts a shadow over the lives of the people who call it home, and if you really want to get to know someone, you’ve got to go somewhere else.

She walked with a limp and was struggling under the oppressive humidity. I offered her my water bottle while we sat along the creek and let our feet cool off in the water. While sitting side by side I realized that I knew nothing about her outside of her name, but over the next thirty minutes I learned more about her than anyone else in town. Without prompting, without asking any questions, she started to spill forth details that had remained buried for a long time. I learned that she had been a writer in Chicago pursuing truth wherever possible, I learned about her desire to have children but had a husband who felt otherwise, I learned about the husband’s pension for physical punishment, I learned about the night he had one too many and beat her so bad she wound up in the hospital with a limp and brain damage, I learned about how she fled to escape his wrath to North Carolina, I learned about how she could only find work as a church custodian because of her physical problems, I learned that she felt alone, afraid, and empty.

We prayed. We prayed and prayed out in those woods. We spilt tears into the creek and we asked for God’s peace. Before we returned to town, my curiosity was too strong to not ask the question on my heart: “Why did you tell me all of that?” I asked. “Because you didn’t ask, you just listened.”

He came to the prayer meetings but never said a word. Every Wednesday morning the family men would sit in one of the parlors at the church and pray for one another before leaving for work. 40 such men had grown to value their time spent with God and one another to help them through the day ahead. We all listened about the problems at home, the children who refused to listen, the bosses who ignored their hard work, the financial struggles, and the crises of faith. It was a time of great vulnerability for us to share our doubts and frustrations without a sense of shame or judgment.

He came to the prayer meetings but never said a word. He never shared his frustration, never offered to pray. He just sat silently in the corner, sipped on his coffee, and left silently at the end of the meeting. That was the routine until one morning when he approached me and asked if he could take me out to breakfast. 20 minutes later I found myself sitting at the Birmingham Country Club in Birmingham, MI with a man who made more in a year than I will make in my entire life. He told me he had cancer, that he had not told anyone else, and that he didn’t know what to do. We prayed together while our coffee grew cold and asked for God’s grace to rain down on us in all things. Before we returned to our cars, my curiosity was too strong to not ask the question on my heart: “Why did you tell me all of that?” I asked. “Because you’re not the pastor, and I felt I could trust you.”

Icicles were beginning to form in my beard. The Christmas trees stood brilliantly arranged on the lawn of St. John’s UMC, with snow caught on the branches while families perused the plentiful selection of White Pines and Frasier Furs. I located one such family with two young children examining a tree near the end of the row. I offered to pull it off the line so they could examine from all angles and imagine it in their living room. We began talking about Staunton and what it means to be a true Stauntonian when they shared with me their desire to find a local church community. “We just moved here,” they said, “and we were hoping to plug in and meet some new people.”

“Well look no further than St. John’s” I began. “We’ve got services on Sundays, a wonderful Preschool, and people who are full of love. However, the pastor isn’t worth a can of beans.” They leaned in closer and asked with a whisper: “Well, then why do you come here if the pastor is so bad? “Because he is me. What makes our church wonderful are the people who attend, not the one who stands at the front.”

ICM: Industrial Commercial Ministries. Your mission is to be a caring presence in the workplaces you serve. You bring faith to the people as a sign of God’s love and presence. I love what you do, because you are called to be just like me, which is to say, you are called to be pastoral in the places that matter most. One of the failings of the modern church is the relegation of faithful living to one hour a week on Sunday mornings. We have diminished the role of Christian discipleship to the worship of God alone, which has allowed us to forget that we have put on Christ Monday through Saturday.

In my experience the most transformative moments in Christians’ lives take place somewhere other than church. My role as a pastor is to equip the people of God to be the body of Christ for the world. As chaplains you have the distinct privilege of sitting and praying with people in the midst of terrible valleys and incredible mountaintops. You, more than pastors, are deeply entrenched in the true mission field of 21st century Christianity.

The end of James contains one of the most beautiful calls for Christians to act like Christ: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Being a Christian is not just about coming to church. Being Christian requires a commitment to confessing our shortcomings with one another, seeking help for the struggles of life no matter where we are and no matter what we do. Being a Christian requires us to be God’s loving and forgiving presence for people who feel they had been abandoned to the cruel fates of the world.

I give God many thanks for the work that you do as chaplains. You get to sit along the creeks of life, soaking your feet in the water, while listening to people open up about their pasts in a way that can be healing and transformative. You get to pray with people who have been dealt heavy blows regarding family issues, hopeless diagnoses, and financial burdens. You get to make Christianity wonderful by being the body of Christ for the world in the world.

I believe the Holy Spirit is moving through all of you. I believe God has done some incredible things through your willingness to meet people where they are. I believe the future of Christianity will be largely dependent on people like you who make the world become flesh in the way you live your lives.

This season of advent is perfect reminder for those of us called to be chaplains. We wait for Emmanuel, God with us, so that we can share that incredible good news with others: God is with you.

Amen.

Just Like Me – Lenten Reflection on Mark 14.32-36

Posted on April 10, 2014 by taylormertins

Mark 14.32-36

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.”

I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and I love this little detail about how the disciples are so tired that they fall asleep. One of the problems with reading small bits of scripture in worship is that we fail to pay attention to what happens immediately before a particular narrative. Now I know that we here are all good United Methodists, and therefore we would not know what it was like to stay up all night drinking wine with our Lord. But I can imagine that they must have been very tired after that celebration. After all this was to be Jesus’ last evening with his closest friends and companions. They shared wine and bread together and eventually made their way to the garden.

Upon arrival Jesus begged his disciples to keep awake with him. But they didn’t. So Jesus went off to the side, threw himself on the ground, and cried out to God, “For you all things are possible, remove this cup from me, don’t let me die tomorrow. But in the end it’s not about what I want, its about what you want.” Thats the story of Jesus in the garden.

I graduated from Duke last May, I haven’t even been in the ministry for an entire year. But while I was at Duke, I took a class on the Greek Exegesis of the Gospel according to Mark. My professor, Joel Marcus, knows more about the gospel of Mark than Mark knew about Mark. Throughout the course of the semester we translated the entire gospel from Greek into English, we would dissect every verse looking at the grammar and discussed the depth of the Word of God.

On one such occasion we found ourselves translating the story of Jesus in the garden. We discussed certain grammatical options when my professor finally asked a question, (He could never remember my name, Taylor, so instead he often called me Tinker) “Tinker, why does Jesus pray for the cup to be passed from him. This is a very troubling verse. On the eve of his execution he calls out to God to save him from death. So, Tinker, why does Jesus pray for the cup to pass from him?”

One of the saddest things about seminary is that everything became a competition; I tried to explain why Jesus prayed this, “Im sure he knew what he was doing, he prayed this for our benefit in the future, so that we would know about prayer.” “No Tinker,” one of my peers interrupted, “Jesus did this to help us recall the Psalmists words of prayer to be delivered from the pit, Jesus wanted us to understand his command over the Old Testament Scriptures…” This went on and on. We showed off in front of our professor explaining and rationalizing why Jesus said what he said. Our answers got better and better, we began to yell at one another across the room when all of the sudden my professor slammed his hands on the table. He said, “I am so sick and tired of hearing young seminarians like you, try to explain away what Jesus said. This verse in Mark is one of my favorites. Do you know why? Because in this scripture Jesus is just like me.” Then it was silent. Though we still had thirty minutes left in class, my professor packed his belongings and walked out of the room.

For days it was all I could think about, and even now I think about it all the time. That in the garden, in this precious moment we have recorded, we see Jesus just like us. You can bet that if I was in the garden and I knew what was going to happen to me I would’ve shouted out, “Please God don’t let it happen!” If I found myself hanging on the cross I would’ve shouted out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus is just like me.

If Jesus was to restart his ministry today in Staunton, VA He would not walk up and down Beverley St. with a three piece pinstripe suit and italian leather shoes. He would be wearing worn out Carhartts, dirty and used. He would be wearing a plaid shirt and hiking boots. He would walk up and down our streets seeking out the last and the least and the lost. Jesus is just like you.

We don’t come to worship to pretend to be someone we’re not. We come together just like this to learn exactly who we are and whose we are. We are just like Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane.

But at the same time, Jesus is completely unlike me. My prayer would have stopped with, “God take this cup from me.” But thats not where Jesus’ prayer ended. Jesus continued on to say, “not what I want, but what you want.” For as many ways as Jesus can be just like us, he is completely unlike us because he knew the Father’s will and marched up to the top Calvary to hang and die on a cross for you and me.

So I wonder; what are your prayers like? Are they like mine: O God please deliver me from this and that… Or are your prayers like Jesus’? “God I know I’m in a tough spot right now, I know that you can fix me and heal me, you can make my son or daughter well, but, in the end its not about what I want, its about what you want.” You know that great part of the Lord’s prayer? Thy Will Be Done. Many of us say it everyday. Do we really want God’s will?

Its not about what I want, its about what you want.