Do you know the song, Lord, I Want to Be a Christian? Consider the four claims we make in this simple song:

1. Lord, I want to be a Christian
2. Lord, I want to be more loving
3. Lord, I want to be more holy
4. Lord, I want to be like Jesus

The obvious thing about these claims is that they are good things for people like us – church goers – to desire. There’s nothing surprising here.

What’s consequential here is that we are publicly expressing what we want. If I say I want a cookie, what action would you expect to see me take? You’d see me acting in ways that would lead to my acquiring a cookie. That might mean that I get a recipe and start baking cookies. It might mean that I go to a grocery store or bakery and get a cookie. You would not expect my saying, “I want a cookie” to be followed by a cookie magically appearing in my hand.

Suppose I say, “I want to be more healthy.” Being healthy for me might include things like my eating and exercising habits. If I tell you, “I want to be more healthy,” there are patterns of activity you could potentially observe in my life to see if my claim that this is my desire, something I indeed want, is true. If you see me eating cheeseburgers and fries, and drinking a shake (all foods I like) at every meal and never see me exercising, you might come to think that my claim that I want to be more healthy is just a pile of meaningless words.

Look again at the claims we make when we sing this song. What kind of evidence would a person look for if they were to believe these claims of ours? What would they see in our lives that would lead them to believe that we DO

want to be a Christian, more loving, more holy, and like Jesus? Are there any actions on our part that could work toward fulfilling these desires we claim to have?

Of course, we could have a conceptual problem. It could be that we want all these things, but we have no idea what they entail. We have an idea that being a Christian is a good thing, but we don’t know how to do it. We know that love is good, but we have no clue how to be more loving. We know “holy” is a popular churchy word (and an unpopular worldly word), but we have no confidence that holiness is anything that can ever be achieved by us. And being like Jesus? We might be able to imagine growing our hair out, having a beard (whether real or fake), wearing a robe & sandals, but actually like Jesus? That’s just not something we can do. We might believe that if any of these things are going to happen God’s just going to have to do it – God’s just going to have to “strike” us with these things, because if our involvement is required, it’s just not going to happen.

There’s something important we’d be missing if we thought this way. Well, two things, but one much more important than the other. The first thing we’re missing is that each of these statements is addressed to someone in particular – and not to the person sitting next to us. In each case we say, “Lord, I want…” This is prayer language. We are talking to God. But we’re not just describing something, like we would be if we said, “Lord, there is a table over there.” When we sing/pray “Lord, I want…” we are using what is called “self-involving” language. We are saying something about ourselves to someone we consider to be our Lord. These are claims that have (hopefully) the beginnings of truth (perhaps we’re just setting out on this journey and we only know enough to begin to want to want these things), and are working there way toward being expressions of our true desires. When we realize who we are talking to, we realize there are more word implied here: “Lord, I want to be like Jesus… and I can’t do it without you… and I invite you to hold me accountable.” That is to say, we’re inviting God to look for evidence in our lives for the truth of these claims.

There’s one last thing here. Though you can pray/sing this on your own, we’ll be singing it as a congregation this Sunday. While some people who are still at the very beginning of their journey in faith may just sing the words without intending to make any claims about themselves at all, most of us will be seeking to make these as true claims. We are declaring with each other that WE want these things. We as individuals, as families, as a church, want to be Christian, more loving, more holy, and like Jesus. This is a journey we get to do together. Because we’re on this journey together, we can take action together. We can encourage each other. We can hold each other accountable and be held accountable when it comes to taking these actions. We’re not in this alone, we have others walking alongside us to help us, to teach us, to pick us up when we fall.

Here’s a nice rendition of the song: