Morning Message Text: Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.
1 LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angelsand crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Morning Message:
I was not sure who would come this morning, but I am trusting God as usual that his message he has placed upon my heart, will find its place in the hearts of those who need it. When I started receiving these thoughts from God several weeks ago, I envisioned a message for young people, middle school, high school, college students, maybe those who have recently graduated and are now in the workforce. I guess it could be a commencement speech, but I doubt that you would ever hear what I am about to say in a secular setting. As I began to put this together, I realized that we all need to hear this no matter our age, and even if we know these things we need to be reminded. I have avoided services like baccalaureate because I don’t believe in giving a sermon in a secular setting where I cannot exclusively proclaim Jesus Christ as the only way to God. God has not called me to speak niceties and platitudes in order to make people feel good.
I read an article recently that was based on a book by Kevin DeYoung. I decided to use the title of his book as the title of this message: Don’t Be True to Yourself. I want to give proper credit to him for some of these thoughts that his writing has provoked in me. I want to start with an example. Twenty years ago,
Anna Quindlen — a writer for the New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a recipient of prestigious honorary degrees — gave this advice to a group of graduating seniors: “Each of you is as different as your fingertips. Why should you march to any lockstep? Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety because it tells us that there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its saying.” That’s typical commencement counsel: “Follow your dreams. March to the beat of your own drummer. Be true to yourself.”
Here is why I will never give a commencement speech or even a baccalaureate sermon. My biblical advice to you and what I would tell everyone who can hear the sound of my voice: Do not follow your dreams. Do not march to the beat of your own drummer. And whatever you do, do not be true to yourself.
Don’t get me wrong, having good dreams for your life and your future is a wonderful thing, but these unspiritual speakers encourage you to go after your dreams at all costs and that includes leaving God behind. Your dreams should always be tempered by your faith, and you should seek God’s approval as you pursue them. As Christians we are called to march to the beat of God’s Holy
Word, not what we feel is right or suits our needs. And do you know what being true to yourself really means? Being selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed. Now, if you are listening to the Holy Spirit in your life and being true to that voice, then okay. What the world is saying to you is take care of number one at all cost.
We must learn that we cannot always trust our natural instincts. The Bible tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death”. In the Bible there is the story of Esau. He sold his birthright for a pot of stew. “Let me eat some of that red stew,” he said, “for I am exhausted. I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” (The story of Esau and Jacob – Genesis 25: 29-32). Esau was defined by his desires, and they deceived him. He wasn’t literally going to die; he was like a child saying when dinner is a half-hour late, “I’m starving!” Esau is operating off of his emotions and desires. He is not made nobler by satisfying his desires. He was made lower. He became like an animal. That’s what the text wants us to see. Esau, the skillful hunter, was prey to his own appetites. He had a better identity as the firstborn of Isaac, but he gave that away. He became a profane man, treating what was sacred with irreverence and disrespect.
The world, sometimes your professors, those that you look up to, tells you that your identity is found in what you desire. So to deny the fulfillment of what you desire is to deny your truest identity. The idea is that you are what you feel, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. No right, no wrong, no rules for me; I’m free.
The world frowns on God’s Word because it cuts against our selfish, self-centered thoughts and points us to God. It reminds us, as the Psalm for today does, that God is bigger, God is righteous, God knows best because God created us. God did not create us to become our own gods and to rely on our sinful nature to guide us. We were all created to be in communion with God and to look to him for our dreams and direction and our self-worth. What every secular commencement speaker fails to tell you, because they do not understand it themselves, is that you can’t trust your gut or your intuition, or even your own sense of right and wrong apart from God’s guidance. Our human nature is sinful and left unchecked it will guide us in the wrong direction. The great theologian of our age, Lady Gaga, was right: You were born that way. The good news of Jesus Christ is that you can be born again another way. You must learn as followers of Jesus that non-believers, no matter what their titles or degrees of education, will lead you the wrong way. Listen to me and what the Holy Spirit is clearly saying to you today. Don’t be true to yourself, be true to God.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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