The message used ...

• a video montage of Nick Saban & Bill Belichick;
• a still photo & quote from Hugh Jackman;
• a demonstration involving Chris Macedo playing Eric Clapton;
• and an exploration into the strategy and psychology behind Pontius Pilate's question "what is truth"

... all to land at this bottom line:   Truth isn't a what. It's a who. ------------------------------------------------------------------ There are so many questions that ultimately can’t be answered.  Did you know that?  Questions that cut to the core of human life that you can spend a lifetime pondering and will never completely solve.  For example . . .  (AV, dissolve):               After they make Styrofoam, what do they ship it in?             Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?             What do you call a male ladybug?             Do Roman paramedics refer to IVs as ‘4s’?             Do people in Australia call the rest of the world ‘up over’?             What was the best thing BEFORE sliced bread?               Yep.  A lot of questions defy our attempts to answer them.  Then you know there are people who are relentless with their questioning.  With children, there are two:  Why? And Are we there yet?  Just relentless.  Speaking of relentless, this is what reporters do, isn’t it?  Ask question.  And I LOVE IT when they ask one too many questions of an already grumpy football coach:  (Videos of Saban & Belicheck dismissing).  And of course our new one is that if you do that with elected officials, they say, ‘you’re fake news.’  One too many questions. You’ve heard them & asked them.               And something happens in John 18 involving one too many questions and a man named Pontius Pilate.  Here’s the situation:  We’re getting close to Easter weekend.  Jesus has been arrested and that has been mostly the function of the religious leaders in Jerusalem.  It hasn’t really gone to the civil (Roman) authorities yet.  Look at 18:28-29 and  you will see the first of a series of questions that PP asks:   ²⁸ Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. ²⁹ So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”   What are the charges? Really:  what possible business is this of mine?  The answer comes in 18:30-31a:   ³⁰ “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.” ³¹ Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”    If he weren’t bad, we wouldn’t bother you with him & the pretty logical rejoinder is This is YOUR problem, a religious one, and so deal with it accordingly.  Notice at every level there is an avoidance, an evasion, and great desire to pass the buck & delay any action.                      Then comes the explanation in 18:31b: “But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected.   DING! DING! DING!  Ah!  There’s the problem!  The religious leaders want this to be a CAPITAL case against Jesus & yet they don’t have the authority to execute.  And if they did, it would be by stoning; not crucifixion.  So the Jewish leaders needed to Roman authorities to turn this from misdemeanor to felony; from hard labor to death sentence.  So then Pilate meets Jesus for the first time and asks his second question:   ³³ Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”    That question is kind of the driver of not only this scene but the whole Gospel of John.  Jesus’ reply is so interesting:   ³⁴ “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”  Essentially:  Pilate, are you OWNING your interest in me or just BORROWING it?  Doing the work yourself or relying on others?               In any event, Pilate dismisses Jesus’ question with one of his own in 18:35:   ³⁵ “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”   I can’t be bothered; I am so frustrated that someone elses’s IRRESPONSIBILITY has become my RESPONSIBILITY.  And then at the end of that verse, he slides in question #4:  What have you done?  What is so bad that they keep bringing you and bothering me?  Jesus answers elusively in 18:36: ³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”  Now: this is NOT about being so heavenly minded that you’re not earthly good.  It IS about origins.  Jesus’ kingdom very much resides HERE but it had its beginnings in another realm.  To which Pilate replies with an almost question in 18:37a: ³⁷ “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.  And I so wish Jesus had answered that with “DUH!”  But, alas, Jesus doesn’t say what I want him to say but says what he really said: Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  All about truth and listening.               And then, and then, Pilate responds with Question #5.  The Question that is really one question too many.  Look at 18:38a: ³⁸ “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. What is truth?  And the question hangs there in John’s Gospel.  Unanswered.  Unresolved.  Like an unresolved piece of music (Chris Macedo plays Eric Clapton, unresolved).  Pilate asks it and leaves it hanging in the air because he doesn’t even wait around for the answer.  With this he went OUT AGAIN …               And what is so great about this hanging, unresolved question is the realization that only ppl who don’t want to hear the truth ever ask what is truth?  It’s is a classic case of avoiding, evading, delaying any decisive action when it comes to Jesus.  It brings up what a lot of you know from experience: many folks ask questions NOT because they want answers but because they want attention.  Not because they want information but because they desire leverage, an advantage in the relationship.  We know that’s the case with Pilate because he LEAVES.               And isn’t it interesting how John writes the story?  Some things are just obvious & inescapable.  Like Pilate asking what is truth? … when truth is standing right in front of him.  Truth is in fact staring him in the face when he asks his one question too many!  Here’s the deal and here’s ultimate what is wrong with PP’s extra question:  Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.  Yes!  Truth – ultimate, eternal, atom-splitting truth is not a principle.  It’s a person.  It’s not a concept.  It’s a crucified Savior.  It’s not a method.  It’s a man.  Not something you reason out.  Something you experience via resurrection.  PP’s unresolved question is never answered & never will be answered because it’s built on a faulty premise.  Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               This is really vital to get deeply in our minds – and this is true if you have already decided to live for Jesus and even if you’re not sure about him.  Because, like Pilate, ppl try to evade, avoid, delay dealing with Jesus all the time even today, and they often do so with what seem to be skillful questions.  Or even by making him appear more principle than person.  And if those of you who are following Jesus aren’t alert, you can be especially vulnerable.  Like years ago, when I was living in NJ and talking with a pastor about this call I was sensing into ministry, I remember him saying, “Well, you’ve only been part of the Xn tradition for a couple of years.”  And I thought, “Huh?  Me?  The Xn tradition?”  As if I had taken part in a series of rituals or agreed to some words on paper.  No! God forbid!  I had aligned my life with a guy who as a weekend began was dead on a tree and as the same weekend concluded was bursting out of a grave!  That’s what I’ve been doing the last three years!  Now: there are traditions & rituals that help reinforce that, but they only augment the MAN at the center.  Because Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               After all, in this same Gospel of John Jesus says 14:6 REPEAT.  He doesn’t POINT TO truth, he doesn’t LIGHT UP truth, he doesn’t REVEAL truth.  He is truth.  Big, big difference.  Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               I love what Hugh Jackman, who was raised in Australia by a father who believes in Christ in much the same way many of us do, has to say on the subject:   What is true and will never change, whether it’s in the Bible or in Shakespeare.  It’s about oneness.  Its basic philosophy is that if the Buddha and Krishna and Jesus were all at a dinner table together, they wouldn’t be arguing.  There is an essential truth.   Hey – they might not be arguing but only one of them was cross-dying and then death-defying.  Only one.  The others at this imaginary dinner table might have some truth, but only one of them IS truth.  Beyond that, at that imaginary dinner, two will be bowing and one will bowed to.  Only one.  Jackman’s words sound comforting, loving, but ultimately they are nonsense.  Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               This sounds kind of shocking and exclusive, I know.  Some of you can’t buy it yet.  That’s OK.  But if that’s you, I just want this little exposure of PP’s delay tactics to settle in with you.  You can think the more questions you ask the more sophisticated you are, but ultimately I suspect you have the information you need to make a decision about Jesus.  Kind of like Lew Wallace, the early on governor of what was then the New Mexico territory.  He set out to write a book depicting Jesus as just a man – which he was but Wallace wanted to prove that was all he was.  And in the course of researching and writing the book, here’s what happened to Lew Wallace:    “In studying his sources — the Gospels — for material to write the romance, General Wallace found himself facing the unaccountable Man Jesus.  The more he studies Christ’s life and character, the more profoundly he was convinced that He was more than a man among men.  “He found Christ to be the great central fact in the world’s history.  To Him everything looks forward or backward; all lines of history converge in Him and radiate from Him.  At last, unable to resist the evidence, Lew Wallace, the infidel friend of the infidel Ingersoll, was constrained to cry, like the centurion under the cross, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’  So in the writing of ‘Ben Hur,’ a book that was to exhibit Christ merely as a human man, Lew Wallace was converted, and painted Him as the Son of God.     Why did that happen?  Why is Ben Hur not a tale of skepticism but a narrative of faith?  Because Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               You know what happens with you think that all truth is the same in the name of tolerance?  When, because of our politically correct age, you equate all forms of belief and all kinds of religious leaders?  The loudest voice wins.  Not thanks.  People: never confuse volume for insight.  Actually, the people who yell the loudest usually have the most to hide.  Don’t listen for the loud-est.  Listen for the empty grave-iest.  Truth isn’t a what.  It’s a who.               Because I can’t get away from what Pilate is really doing.  Asking one more question is the ultimate delay tactic.  So I have to ask: are you too smart for you own good?  Have you built up a series of question that you think protect you from Jesus but actually just enable some behavior you know you’d likely have to relinquish if you actually followed Jesus?  Do you ask questions not because you really want answers but because you want to delay or avoid a decision?  Like the best question – for real – is what happens to the souls of ppl who never hear about Jesus?  Well I DON’T KNOW.  But I do know that YOU have heard of Jesus and your soul will be judged on what you’ve done with you know.  Don’t let the lack of information in the hands of a tribal villager in India prevent you from responding to the knowledge that you do have.               Maybe even more to the point:  are you getting by on borrowed faith?  A faith you have overheard but never settled in?  Listen: this is not ceremony here.  It’s crucifixion.  It’s not a philosophy.  It’s history.  It’s not something you figure out by reason.  It’s anchored in resurrection.  I don’t even want you to think you’re living by Christian values! But by Christ, who is your life.  It’s not something you do or an organization you join.  It’s someone you are and a life you enter in.  Like happened to a friend of mine a few years ago. Listen:   I was a very vocal non-believer just a few years ago. I started coming to GSUMC  after my son was born with the idea that I would let him make up his own mind. I never had any intentions of changing my views. Sometime a couple of years later that changed. I can’t remember the exact date, maybe after  an Easter service when you said, “Get off the fence” or maybe sometime after that. I know that it happened almost instantly. I no longer needed tangible proof of the Savior we call Jesus. I just knew he was there for me and that  I now belonged to him. Not sure what shape I would be in now without that piece of mind.             

In these weeks leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we are exploring that which Jesus finishes. What he is done with. What he is so over. We've seen how he is so over celebrity and talked about how he is done with pirate playing. This Sunday, it will be all about how he is done with one question too many. Which brings up an interesting question:  do people ask questions because they want answers or because they want something else entirely?  Like attention?  Like advantage?  Like evasion. We'll explore those and other issues, this Sunday. 8:30, 10, 11:30 on Moss Road. 10, 11:30 on Zoar Road. 11:30 at Ministerio Latino.

Below you will find the transcript of Chris Thayer's sermon from this past Sunday, March 26. We diverted from our usual Sunday program in which Zoar Road gets my sermon on hologram (hi def, life-size video).  Instead, to celebrate the one year anniversary of the campus, Chris prepared and delivered the message below. Chris preached this to the 294 people at Zoar Road.  His bottom line:  Don't let the WHAT distract us from the WHO. ------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning. My name is Chris Thayer and I’m our Zoar Campus Pastor. It’s great to be here with you today and to celebrate One year together. It’s so great to see what God has done and to look forward to what He is going to do.   Before we launched our Zoar Campus, I oversaw LifeGroups at Good Shepherd. So I have a soft spot in my heart for them. My wife and I both attend LifeGroups. My LifeGroup meets on Tuesday evenings and hers meets on Wednesdays. It’s just easier for us to do it on two different nights, that way one of us can always be home with the kids. We figure that it’s not good to leave a 6 year old and a 3 year old at home alone.   Katie’s LifeGroup starts at 6:30, so every Wednesday I make sure I’m home by 6pm so she can make it to her LifeGroup.   Well, several months ago I had a hard day at work with a lot of meetings and some hospital visits, so I was running late. I was pretty stressed because of having a busy day and knowing that I had to be home so Katie could to her LifeGroup. I was running late and I hate not being on time. So I got home at 6:20, and Katie had to leave right away.   The kids and I sat down to eat dinner. Since it was a long day and they had been so well behaved the previous week, I figured that it would make our evening a little easier if I had a project. Somewhere I could take them. So I decided I was going to take them out for ice-cream. I told them about it when I got home and they were excited.   But then it took a really long time for them to eat their dinner. And as it got later and later I realized we were going to have a difficult time making it home to get them in bed by their bedtime at 8pm.   The whole time I was sitting with my kids I was distracted. I was thinking about my day, how I was late, how they were taking too long to eat to keep on schedule, and now that we were going to be late to bed. My mind was everywhere but present.   So I decided that we needed to get their PJ’s on before we left. That way I wouldn’t have to be worried about having one more thing to do when we got back and we could enjoy getting ice-cream. I realize there’s no actual difference in time, but it made me feel better.   They got their PJ’s on and we got in the car in the garage. I buckled them in their car seats, sat down in the driver seat, started the car, and put it in reverse. Now before you ask, yes, I did open the garage door. But I was so distracted by everything else that I wasn’t paying attention. I looked over my left shoulder and as I was backing out I heard a loud crunch to my right. I snapped my head around to see that I had hit the side of the garage door frame. I pull the car forward, get out, and see the mirror smashed. Plastic was on the floor, and it was dangling pitifully by a wire.   I told the kids I made a grown-up mistake, and that we couldn’t have ice-cream. I told them to head inside and play and I’d be in later to put them to bed.   As I looked at the mess I had made, I noticed I had a bottle of Gorilla Glue and a roll of duct tape on the workbench. And what can you NOT fix with Gorilla Glue and duct tape? So, I grab them and get to work. But now I’m even more distracted because I’m mad at myself and upset that the kids can’t get ice-cream because of my mistake, on top of everything else that happened that day. So over an hour and three attempts later I’ve made a mess. Glue’s everywhere and the duct-tape pulled paint off the car.   I go inside, put the kids to the bed at about 8:45 and go to bed. I was done with the day.   And praise God for new days, because the next morning when I wasn’t distracted I realized the mirror was a simple fix. I pop off the old mirror that was held on by a couple of bolts, order a replacement part on Amazon, and within 7 minutes of it arriving at my house I have a new mirror on my car. The only way you know there was ever an issue is the paint that’s missing from the duct tape I used to try to fix it when I was distracted.   Isn’t it that way when we get distracted? We end up making a mess and things are so much harder than they would be if we were focused on the right thing. We end up with a pile of glue and peeled paint.   We have problems with our spouse or with our kids. And instead of focusing on them we distract ourselves with TV, games, and social media. We make our lives look like these great pictures, but if anybody pulled back the curtain they’d find something much different.   And far from helping the problems, distracting ourselves from them makes them worse. Relationships fall apart, our children suffer, and we end up with divorces.   This is why I LOVE Paul’s letter to the Colossian church. As I was praying about what God wanted us to hear today as we celebrate a year together as a community, I was reading through Paul’s letters to churches. You see, Paul was a sort of traveling preacher, teacher, evangelist, and church planter. He would start churches in the cities he traveled to. He would share the Gospel of Jesus with people in that city and they would form communities and continue to spread the Gospel when Paul left to go to another city. Then, as the churches encountered problems, or when he wanted to encourage them, he would write them letters.   So I’m reading through these letters Paul wrote and I got to the letter to the church in Colossae. I learned that Paul wrote this letter when the church was still young. They hadn’t been around very long. So immediately this caught my attention. And Paul had never actually been to this church. He’d never met the people. His friend, Epaphras, actually started the church. But Paul learned that there were some issues going on in the church, and he wanted to write them to encourage and challenge them.   Right at the start of the letter, in the first chapter, Paul lets the Colossian church know the kind of things that he’d like to see in their lives. He lets them know that he wants them to have knowledge and wisdom from the Spirit, that they would bear fruit, and that they would have endurance and patience.   Later in the letter he is going to address some false teachers they have had infiltrate their ranks. People who were distorting the Gospel and telling them things that were untrue.   So Paul wants to address two things: fruit that they’d have in their lives and false teachers.   And stepping back from the letter, if I were writing a community of believers that were young. If I were encouraging a group of people to have good fruit in their lives and to be on guard against false teachers, I’d make sure that I jumped right into practical tips. The WHAT of how they can achieve these things in their lives. If most of us were to write this letter, we’d probably include things like: pray regularly, study scripture, gather together with other believers regularly (get in a LifeGroup!), serve others, and fast.   That’s what I’d do anyway.   But that’s not what Paul does.   As I read through the first chapter again and again – I realized that Paul went on this odd tangent. When I would have jumped to the what, Paul does something different.   Now, anytime something in scripture shocks you; anytime something happens that you don’t understand or that you think would have been done differently: pay attention. Writing a letter in the ancient world was not as simple as it is today. Paul couldn’t zip an e-mail over to the Roman church. Or text the Ephesians. Paul more than likely dictated his letters. The paper was expensive, the ink wasn’t easy to come by. And there was no Amazon to one-day ship his letter. Somebody had to transport the letter through often difficult conditions to deliver the communication.   So listen to what Paul says when we think he’d be giving the Colossians practical tips on what to do:   ¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. … ²⁸ He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. ²⁹ To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.     Huh? We would tell them what and Paul gives them a who. Why?   Paul, didn’t Epaphras already tell them this? They’re already following Jesus, so don’t they already know this about Him?   And then it hit me. Paul’s words challenged the Colossians and speak to us today:   Don’t let our focus on the what distract us from the who.   Paul knew that as this church got its feet under it and started to deal with adversity within its ranks, that it’d be really easy to focus on what they need to do and forget that it’s only through the who that they’re able to do any of it.   Paul probably gives more practical advice than anyone in the New Testament. He frequently tells churches what they should be focused on.   And there’s nothing wrong with that - but he knows that the minute they get distracted by the what they’re going to end up with a mess of glue and duct tape.   Look at it again:    ¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.   If you believe THAT – if you believe that God has stepped into this world – that Jesus stepped into this world. That in some mysterious way God Himself, through the person of Jesus, stepped onto the ground we walk on – then nothing can stay the same for us.   ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.   If Jesus is the head of the body. If He is the head of our community, then we can’t look at each other and pretend that we can do anything at all without Him. If we miss Him, if we move without Him, we may as well hang it up. In Him all things hold together.   If He has uniquely gifted everybody in this community to serve Him then we need each other. We would be disobedient to Him if we lived any other way.   ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.   We live in a broken and hurting world. All of us have been broken in one way or another. And the only hope the world has is in the one who reconciled the world and made peace. The one who has brought redemption and peace. The one who died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day defeating death.   Outside of Him we have nothing. Outside of the Who the What has zero significance.   And I LOVE how he ends this section:   ²⁹ To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.   All of the what Paul does, flows out of who is in Him. Not his own power. Christ’s.   Don’t let our focus on the what distract us from the who.   Over the past several months I’ve realized this to be so true. As we continue to grow and learn how to do this new Campus thing at Good Shepherd I’ve found it’s so easy for me to focus on the what. How can I help people get involved in LifeGroups, how can I help people get involved in ServeTeams. What do we need to do to reach out to the community. How can I make people happy so they want to stay.   I found myself getting so caught up in the what that I’d lost sight of the who. I found myself shifting toward inviting people into a living relationship with Good Shepherd instead of with The Good Shepherd.   But if we want to be what God wants us to be and do what He wants us to do we need to focus first on Him. I need to realize that my first responsibility is not your happiness but your holiness. Not how good we are but how glorious He is.     Because if we actually believe what Paul wrote about Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20 and THAT’S who we know - then we can’t stay the same.   Who we become flows out of who He is.   So how about you? Where in your life are you focusing so much on the what that you’ve forgotten the who? How can you listen to Paul’s letter to the Colossians and be reminded daily who Jesus is?   I have a friend who does it this way:       Every day he’s reminded during his commute who Jesus is.   Because imagine what our community, your neighborhoods, your workplaces, and your families will look like when you operate out of the reality of who Jesus is.   And so many of you have challenged me and encouraged me when you live this out. When you view your workplace not as a place to make money but a place God has placed you to serve Him and communicate His Gospel.   Or others of you who are less concerned about the accolades your children will receive than you are about the Savior they will know.   So as we look forward to the years to come for us as a community and for all of us in our lives:   Don’t let our focus on the what distract us from the who.   Let’s Pray.

For 2017, we have added Staff Seminary to our repertoire of how our staff gathers. What is Staff Seminary?  It's a monthly workshop in which our staff receives interactive training in the skills of ministry.  We have scheduled ten such gatherings in 2017, and I am slated to lead six of them. So far we have grown our counseling skills through what is called a verbatim (a recreation of a counseling experience in which staffers are free to critique as long as they are open to grow) and a two part teaching about message preparation and delivery. As you might suspect, I have led those three sessions as they represent two of my sweet spots of pastoral ministry. And last week, I realized the value to me of laying out precisely how I think about pastoral counseling and, more particularly, how I prepare,  design, and deliver a Sunday morning message.  It's this:  I have to think about what I've stopped thinking about. Huh? Here's what I mean.  My method for sermon preparation is so ingrained, so habitual, so personal ... that I rarely think about it anymore.  I've developed "sermon muscle memory."  It reminds me of hitting my backhand back in the day -- I never had to think about how to hit it; I had practiced it so often it just came out naturally. It is much the same with sermon preparation these days.  Now: I am thinking while in the process (every week!).  But I don't ever think about the process itself. So as I shared with the staff in great detail about where messages come from, they interjected with all kinds of questions.  "What does that scribble mean?"  "Why do you link ideas with circles?"  "How do you make sense of all these little notes?"  For example, I told our GS staffers that my plan for bringing a bottom line to life begins by brainstorming around two simple ideas:  WHEN I and PEOPLE WHO.  Meaning: when have I lived or experienced the truth of the bottom line and who are some people I have seen who have themselves lived out the bottom line. Afterwards, two staffers told me that those simple observations -- WHEN I and PEOPLE WHO -- significantly changed their own message prep.  And I had been doing it that way for so long, I had long ago stopped thinking about it. Until I had to. So I guess staff seminary is helping not only staff but faux professor as well. What in your life have you done so much and for so long that you've stopped thinking about it?  

While it can be dangerous to attach too much importance to single verses of Scripture -- thereby yanking them out of context -- nevertheless there is something so powerful about certain sentences in the bible. Especially those that speak of eternal life. These are the words I read to terminally ill patients and their families as they reach the end of their days. They're the words I say at funerals and memorials. They are, as you'll see, even the words I want on my grave marker when my time comes. These words have formed my faith and blessed my spirit; I pray they do the same for yours today. 5. Romans 8:18 -- "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." 4. Luke 23:43 -- "Jesus answered [the thief on the cross], 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.'" 3. I Corinthians 15:51-53 -- "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed -- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality."  Reading all of I Corinthians 15 lets you know that Paul is more interested in life after life after death than he is in life after death. 2. II Corinthians 5:8 -- "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." 1. Philippians 1:21 -- Christ is me is to live; to die is to gain. (This one will be on my marker.)