You Be You -- Catchphrase Conundrums

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the Erickson Covenant Podcast. We're so glad that you've joined us today. We confess that we don't have all the answers, but as a community, we seek to find and follow Jesus and to discover daily the life he has always wanted for us. We hope this message will be encouraging and will inspire you to take the next steps on your spiritual journey. If we can help you in any way, please connect with us. The easiest way is through our website at Erickson Covenant CA let's get started. [00:00:39] Speaker B: It was just in time for Valentine's [00:00:41] Speaker C: Day 15 years ago that Lady Gaga released her smash hit, Born this Way. I know you loved it. [00:00:52] Speaker B: With her incredible voice, Lady Gaga proudly declared, I'm beautiful in my way because God makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track, baby. I was born this way. You want to sing it? Don't hide yourself in regret. Just love yourself and you're set. I'm on the right track, baby. [00:01:14] Speaker C: I Was Born this Way was the [00:01:17] Speaker B: anthem for a generation that's been told again and again that no matter how anxious you may feel, however confused life may seem, however at odds you are with what's happening around you or what's happening within you, however much you might feel like you're floundering and failing and depressed and anxious, you are perfect just the way you are. In fact, in order to be who you truly are, in order for you to be truly happy, truly fulfilled, you need to express your authentic self in whatever way you feel is truest to your inner you. Detractors be damned. Born this Way declares total liberation from cultural constraints, social mores, ancient norms, and even physical realities. It could seem like Lady Gaga is rooting her message in some kind of biological reality. I mean, being born this way. But it turns out that it's more of a celebration of choice over biology, of personal expression over concrete realities to you being whoever you decide to be or want to be in that moment. Because God makes no mistakes in the simplest terms, no matter what the world may tell you, no matter what your body's like, no matter what you may have thought or what you might have been taught. U be you. You be you. Welcome to today's catchphrase conundrum, where it will be underscored by random feedback just to highlight certain points. Over the next four weeks, we're going to drill down on four common cultural catchphrases in an attempt to decode their meaning and discern what is true and what is false. We're going to do all this so that we can better understand the cultural messaging that we both receive and hear every day and more effectively engage others [00:03:34] Speaker C: in the good news of Jesus Christ. [00:03:36] Speaker B: And so today's catchphrase conundrum is you be you. [00:03:40] Speaker C: Have you ever heard or used this catchphrase? You be you. Or maybe it's alternate you do you. [00:03:47] Speaker B: You ever been cornered by that odd [00:03:48] Speaker C: friend and his UFO conspiracies and then [00:03:52] Speaker B: you found yourself saying as you tried to back out of this alien corner, hey, man. Hey, man, you do you right? [00:04:00] Speaker C: No, just me. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Or maybe someone's sporting the strangest outfit ever and it just kind of leaps to your mind unbidden. Well, man, you do you, you be you. I find the more I visit Vancouver these days, the more that just pops into my mind. Have you ever heard or used this catchphrase? Or if not you a be you or you do you? Maybe you've heard similar ones, like just be yourself or for the really sophisticated among us, you know, the Shakespeareans, to thine own self be true. Now, it's not that all these you [00:04:41] Speaker C: do you, you be you messages are bad. They're not. [00:04:46] Speaker B: For example, there's quite a number of you be you type songs out there that are rightfully pushing back against our culture's hypersexualized body image warping view of women. As you well know, women and girls are subject to an ungodly amount of pressure and shame to conform their bodies to unrealistic standards that have little to do with health and beauty and nothing to do with who God has created them to be. And so some of these you do you, you be you type of songs offer a very healthy corrective, calling women to stop staring bewitched in the cultural mirror so that they can be their natural, lovable selves. In the song Scars to youo're Beautiful, Canadian singer Alicia Cara sings this truth to her own pressured, her own image pressured generation. These are some of the words she has dreams to be an envy. So she's starving. You know, cover girls eat nothing. She says beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything. What's a little bit of hunger? [00:05:56] Speaker C: I can go a little while longer. She fades away she don't see her [00:06:01] Speaker B: perfect she don't understand she's worth it. Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface. So to all the girls that's hurting, let me be your mirror Help you see a little bit clearer the light that shines within There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark and you should know you're beautiful Just the way you are. And you don't have to change a thing. The world can change its heart. No scars to your beautiful. We're stars and we're beautiful. And then the refrain really hammers it home. [00:06:31] Speaker C: No better you than the you that you are. [00:06:34] Speaker B: No better life than the life we're living. No better time for your shine. You're a star. [00:06:39] Speaker C: Oh, you're beautiful. Oh, you're beautiful. [00:06:43] Speaker B: You know, in a world that often tramples and twists women's true beauty, can we all agree that there's truth in there that needs to be heard? I wish more women would understand the fact that they don't need to conform to some false beauty standard or bow to sexual pressure, but rather embrace their [00:07:00] Speaker C: beauty as images of God. [00:07:04] Speaker B: And yet. And yet, as much as we empathize and sympathize with the phrase no better [00:07:12] Speaker C: you than the you that you are, [00:07:14] Speaker B: there's just a point at which we say, yeah, but. Well, maybe not quite. I mean, no better you than the you that you are. [00:07:28] Speaker C: Okay. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Applied in a certain way, as she's applying certain. Yeah, but take that at a larger level. And we want to go, yeah, well, okay, I want to talk about that a little bit. I mean, really, there's no better you than the you that you are. It's a conundrum. So what is it? [00:07:46] Speaker C: This Ubu. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Is ubu true or is it false? Is it a helpful phrase or is it a harmful one? [00:07:58] Speaker C: Is it something good or something dangerous? Well, let's drill down on it, see what we can decode. [00:08:05] Speaker B: First, let's discern what is true about [00:08:08] Speaker C: the phrase you be you, because there's some real truth here, my friends. [00:08:15] Speaker B: I want you to hear this clearly right off the top. You are a walking, talking, breathing, thinking, loved, growing, sleeping, dreaming, loved, forgiven, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Image of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. [00:08:33] Speaker C: And I'm going to say that again [00:08:35] Speaker B: because I really want you to hear it. [00:08:36] Speaker C: Okay? [00:08:37] Speaker B: You and you, and every one of you are a walking, talking, breathing, thinking, loving, growing, sleeping, dreaming, loved, forgiven, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Image of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Your very nature as a human being, as an embodied, living soul, reflects God's very essence. And it's crucial that we grasp this because it forms the very foundation of all human identity. When God created human beings, he explicitly created them, male and female, in his image. In his image, there is no higher status for a created being than the human being. Humans outrank all other living creatures, all animals, all angels, all spirits, all elements, all matter. For it is only to humans that God granted the right, the privilege and the responsibility to bear his image. There is no greater creation in all the universe, in all the billions of galaxies combined, [00:10:02] Speaker C: than a human image of God. [00:10:04] Speaker B: And that dignity forms the very basis [00:10:08] Speaker C: of our commitment to human rights. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Our pro life stance against abortion, our commitment to love our neighbor, to protect the weak, to serve the poor, to oppose medically assisted suicide, to support those caught in addiction, to promote the well being of our broader community, to seek the true good for others. We do it because humans matter most. From the soil of this good earth, God created us. [00:10:41] Speaker C: God created you. [00:10:45] Speaker B: And not just and then he created you and then breathed right full of God's own breath. God designed us to reflect his nature, his glory, His, his persons, in all [00:10:58] Speaker C: that we are, in all that we [00:11:00] Speaker B: do, in all that we say, and in every relationship we have, including the way we care for each other, including the way we care for our bodies, [00:11:07] Speaker C: including the way we care for God's world. [00:11:11] Speaker B: So what does this mean? Well, it means that you, every one of us, every one of you, are [00:11:18] Speaker C: unique image of the eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Every one of you. You were designed by this eternal God for an eternal relationship with him. And not just some generic relationship, you know, not just. You're just part of the mob and God's somewhere over there. And yeah, he kind of met you one time, but you're not really sure, not that kind of relationship. You were created for a one of a kind relationship that is uniquely fitted to you, uniquely expressive of you, and can only be experienced and filled by. God has designed each and every one of you for Himself and in such a way that only you can fulfill that particular design. God lovingly created you and has destined you for a glory that is beyond anything you or I can imagine. [00:12:10] Speaker C: And he loves you. And he loves you. [00:12:16] Speaker B: One of the greatest poetic expressions of this truth around human identity. We already heard it read, but I'm going to read for it again is from Psalm 139. [00:12:24] Speaker C: For God created my inmost being. [00:12:28] Speaker B: You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of [00:12:53] Speaker C: them Came to be. [00:12:55] Speaker B: How precious to me are your thoughts, God, how vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I am awake, I am still with you. I hope your heart is growing a few sizes already. I hope your mind is set to explode out of your ears. This is life changing truth. It should be flooding your soul with wonder. Your Creator planned you down to the last strand of DNA, knit you together at the moment of conception, weaving you together through all the stages of gestation to full term and bursting you out into the world so that you might [00:13:39] Speaker C: experience all the days he ordained for you. Your Creator thinks much of you and [00:13:47] Speaker B: he still does and he always has. And he's got a good plan for you and he's going to stick with you no matter what happens or wherever you go. He's going to see through to completion [00:13:57] Speaker C: what he has started in you. And all that because your Creator wants you to be the you that he created you to be. Christ, your unique, one of a kind image of Himself by the Holy Spirit [00:14:15] Speaker B: who took up residence in your life the moment you placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Your Creator is still at work. He's forming you into an even greater expression of Himself, which is an even greater expression of you. A new creation, he calls it surpassing the old. So that you grow up into all that God has dreamed for you. So that you can truly be the [00:14:39] Speaker C: you God created you to be. [00:14:43] Speaker B: Well, with this stunning understanding in mind, we can powerfully declare that it is God's deepest desire that you be you. You be you as God created you to be you be you uniquely shaped for relationship with the Father you be you with your special gifts and experiences and neurodivergenc and passions and interests and idiosyncrasies all growing up together in Christ. God isn't calling you to be someone else. He wants you to be you. In the fullest, truest, most OG sense of that word. [00:15:29] Speaker C: Has he created you to reflect his glory and goodness in your unique. [00:15:35] Speaker B: No one else can be the you [00:15:37] Speaker C: that God created you to be. So you be you. Amen. [00:15:43] Speaker B: I think you can see how this [00:15:44] Speaker C: is an incredibly high view of humanity. Incredibly a high view of yourself. [00:15:49] Speaker B: The Christian understanding of the human person in the human body is without rival in the world, holding up the highest, most glorious, the deepest regard for the full human embodied person that outstrips any other religion and any other philosophy, hands down. Look it up. Go ahead and study it. And when you really get it down deep. It should make you sing, it should make you feel amazing, and it'll transform the way you understand all of life [00:16:19] Speaker C: from yourself, rippling outwards. You are special, you are unique. You are loved by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in whose image you were created. This is life changing truth right there in the common catchphrase, you be you. But there's also a tricky lie in there and we need to uncover it. So what's false about the phrase you be you? [00:16:52] Speaker B: Well, the problem is that the you you actually are now isn't the you [00:17:00] Speaker C: God originally created you to be. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Do I need to say that again, or is it on the screen? Oh, it's on the screen. The you you actually are now isn't the you God originally created you to be. That's a problem. Friends. Who you are as you are is not perfect. [00:17:21] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:17:23] Speaker B: However much we might want to agree with Lady Gaga's theological affirmation that God doesn't make mistakes, we have to then go on, admit that we make a whole bunch of them and our mistakes have messed us up royally and right down to the root. And God bless Alicia. But there is in fact, a better [00:17:43] Speaker C: you than the you that you are. Sorry, not sorry. [00:17:51] Speaker B: This is the fuller, more complete story of humanity. It's your fuller, more complete story. It's the one you've got to get [00:17:59] Speaker C: if there's any hope of actually becoming you. [00:18:04] Speaker B: You see, human beings, these gloriously reflective images of the eternal God, these wondrously amazing creatures that rank higher than all other beings, both visible and invisible, are in fact sinful, have in fact fallen, are in actuality deformed, broken creatures, desperately in need of rescue, restoration and renewal. But let me make this personal. My name is Tom Greentree and I was born bent. I gestated in my sin for nine months and then I shot out of the birth canal, flooded with sinful desires. [00:18:54] Speaker C: You laugh because you recognize yourself. [00:18:57] Speaker B: I hope I emerged into self consciousness. Selfish, willful, fearful, deceptive, manipulative, rebellious and resistant to the very God who made me in this image, who knit me together in my mother's womb and designed me for himself. I have willingly and willfully and knowingly done things that I knew was not right. And then I hid that sin from as many people as possible. [00:19:29] Speaker C: I even tried to hide it from God. [00:19:32] Speaker B: I have hurt people. I have lied, flattered, denied, avoided and projected a fake me to everyone I could. All an attempt to preserve the sinful self that I wanted to be on my own. And I am not the only one. Whether you are willing to admit it or not, so are you. So in order for me to be [00:20:02] Speaker C: me, I need me to be saved from me first. [00:20:07] Speaker B: Because the me I am is sinful [00:20:09] Speaker C: and in need of salvation. [00:20:12] Speaker B: And in order for you to be you, you need to be saved from yourself first too, so that you can [00:20:18] Speaker C: actually be who God created you to be in the first place. [00:20:22] Speaker B: You know, Paul talked about this true human condition in Ephesians 2. We read that as well. Listen though, to the state we were in before Jesus, and then what God did about it through Jesus. [00:20:34] Speaker C: And notice all the you statements that happen here as this unfolds. So listen to it. [00:20:39] Speaker B: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live, when you followed the ways of this world. And the ruler of the kingdom of [00:20:48] Speaker C: the air, the Spirit, who is now [00:20:50] Speaker B: at work in those who are disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But. But because of his great love for [00:21:13] Speaker C: us, God, who is rich in mercy, [00:21:17] Speaker B: made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. [00:21:24] Speaker C: It is by faith, by grace, you have been saved. Ephesians 2:1 4, you be you. [00:21:32] Speaker B: You can't be you when you is dead. You can't be you when you are by nature deserving wrath. And this is your state, my state, your condition, my condition, your reality, and my reality. Apart from from God before Jesus, you is dead. [00:22:02] Speaker C: Dead, dead, dead in your sins. Dead people can't do anything for themselves, can they? Dead people, spiritually dead people, they can't [00:22:15] Speaker B: grow, they can't become who they're supposed to be. They can't enjoy the life with God they were created to enjoy. They can't be all that they were destined to be as image bearers of God. They can't. Spiritually, dead people can only stink and lie there and decompose. They certainly can't bring themselves back to life. It's not within their power. [00:22:41] Speaker C: Dead is dead is dead. And we were dead. [00:22:44] Speaker B: And that's the human story. That's the reality of history. As human beings, we started with this glorious destiny and then we just descended into gross depravity. [00:22:55] Speaker C: Dead in our transgressions and sins. Dead, that is, until God in his great love, God in his rich mercy, made us alive with Christ even when [00:23:14] Speaker B: we were dead in our transgressions. God made us alive with Christ as an act of unmerited grace. Because death, as we well know, is not a problem for the God who is life eternal. Death is overcome by the love of God in Christ, poured into our lives by the Lord and giver of life, the Holy Spirit. God loved us in our dead state and brought us back to life in Christ. Can I get a woo hoo? Yes. You know, the FIFA people are making a whole lot more noise than that. And they're just chasing a stupid ball around BC Place. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks. Micah lives right above BC Place. He's not very happy about FIFA. [00:24:08] Speaker B: He doesn't really get the chasing balls [00:24:10] Speaker C: around a field thing. [00:24:13] Speaker B: But he does know all the inconveniences [00:24:16] Speaker C: it imposes on his life. So, you know, Sorry, that was in my mind. Can I get a woohoo again just [00:24:22] Speaker B: to keep us going? Oh, yes, yes. A little bit more. Yes. Okay, here we go. So listen, you can't just rattle off you be you until you grasp that each and every you has a sin and death problem that only Christ can [00:24:36] Speaker C: solve and did solve. [00:24:40] Speaker B: The idea that you can be or that you are just perfect the way you are, that you don't need to change a thing, that you don't need to grow, that you don't need to submit or repent or confess your sin or frankly admit anything at all different than what you want to do. That idea is not only false, it's [00:24:56] Speaker C: harmful, it's dehumanizing and it's destructive. [00:25:01] Speaker B: Whenever the affirmation you be you excludes God's saving grace needed to redeem and restore the you that is you, then that's a lie that keeps people stuck in sin and death. They'll never be the you that God [00:25:15] Speaker C: created him to be. [00:25:16] Speaker B: That way, without God's life, the you that is dead stays dead. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Without understanding sin and salvation. You do you, you be you is not loving affirmation. It's actually harmful deception. [00:25:33] Speaker B: And that's not just for those who have not yet received the grace and salvation that God offers. No, this is an ongoing reality for all Christians. We are sinners in constant need of God's forgiveness and mercy. You know, when the apostle John wrote his little letter to this group of Christians that he had pastored, people who had already been saved by grace, people who were already made alive in Christ, he reminded them of their ongoing need to confess the reality of sin in [00:26:03] Speaker C: their lives before Jesus. [00:26:05] Speaker B: This is what he said in 1st John 1:8:9. He said, if we claim to be without Sin. [00:26:12] Speaker C: We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness as we receive God's forgiveness and [00:26:29] Speaker B: eternal life through Jesus. We're saved by grace. We're made alive in Christ. We're filled with the Holy Spirit. [00:26:36] Speaker C: But we still sin. You still sin, I still sin. [00:26:41] Speaker B: We all still struggle. And we will continue to do so, which is why we're invited, we're told. Admit that you have sinned, confess it and get forgiveness. Move on in purity. Keep confessing, keep receiving, keep following the Holy Spirit. We're going to continue to do this until we die. And then we'll be raised in perfection. Then we'll be raised in a resurrection [00:27:05] Speaker C: body to be with Jesus forever, and [00:27:07] Speaker B: that battle will be over. [00:27:10] Speaker C: But until then, we rely on Jesus for His forgiveness and his freedom. [00:27:14] Speaker B: And what that means is that even now you be you must include [00:27:21] Speaker C: our need for forgiveness, our need for salvation, [00:27:25] Speaker B: our need for self reflection, our need for brothers and sisters who walk with us, our need for ongoing sanctification, which is the fancy wor. It's just the Holy Spirit making you holy like Him. [00:27:40] Speaker C: Ubu isn't a blanket excuse for sin or willfulness or selfishness or a hard heart because you need saving and so do I. [00:27:52] Speaker B: But even here, even here, in the part where I'm talking about the false side of Ubu, even here, there's some truth you need to notice, something important. You need to grasp a crucial element actually of gospel truth. [00:28:08] Speaker C: What is it? What is it? Here it is. You are loved as you are in your sin. [00:28:19] Speaker B: You don't need to become better in order for God to love you or fix a few things up in your life so that God will then save you. [00:28:30] Speaker C: In fact, if you've been paying attention, [00:28:33] Speaker B: you can't do that. You're dead. Remember? You can't do anything to make yourself more lovable or more acceptable or more loved by God. Not only because you're actually helpless to do so, but actually gloriously, it turns out it's completely unnecessary. The Father loves you as you are your sin. You can't impress God with some special work that would make him change his mind and decide, yeah, okay, I guess I'll love him. I guess I'll save her. [00:29:07] Speaker C: His love for you is eternal and [00:29:10] Speaker B: unchanging, and he offers that life to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Pure grace, unmerited favor, unconditionally offered, not [00:29:20] Speaker C: through works that we have done. [00:29:23] Speaker B: The late Timothy Keller captured this good [00:29:25] Speaker C: news perfectly when he said this. [00:29:27] Speaker B: He said, the gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus [00:29:41] Speaker C: Christ than we ever dared hope. Now that's worth reading again. [00:29:48] Speaker B: God bless Timothy Keller, who is now with the Lord. [00:29:51] Speaker C: He gave us this. So good. [00:29:53] Speaker B: The gospel is this. [00:29:55] Speaker C: Hear this carefully, friends. [00:29:57] Speaker B: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than [00:30:14] Speaker C: we ever dared hope. [00:30:18] Speaker B: So no, you are not perfect the [00:30:21] Speaker C: way you are, but you are perfectly loved the way you are. And that, my friends, is the glory of the gospel, [00:30:34] Speaker B: the truth your soul [00:30:36] Speaker C: can rest in knowing that you can be you. [00:30:41] Speaker B: God demonstrated his love for us in this while we were still sinners, while we were still dead, in our transgressions and sins, while we were still his enemies. [00:30:50] Speaker C: That's when Christ died for us in [00:30:53] Speaker B: order to bring us back to life so that we could actually be the people that he has created us to be. [00:31:00] Speaker C: And he's committed to seeing us through to eternal life, to sinless perfection, so that the true you shines forever. Well, let's get practical as we close today. [00:31:11] Speaker B: When does this catchphrase u be you work? [00:31:15] Speaker C: When should we be using it? And perhaps when does it not work? [00:31:20] Speaker B: I believe that we need to confidently [00:31:23] Speaker C: say you be you to each other [00:31:25] Speaker B: whenever we forget that we have been [00:31:27] Speaker C: created in the image of God as [00:31:30] Speaker B: unique persons designed to reflect his glory in this body, with this personality, through these unique gifts and passions and wiring in life situations, you be you. Look each other in the eye and say it with confidence. [00:31:44] Speaker C: I want to encourage you to be you. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Don't be someone else. I want to affirm your uniqueness. I want to rail against false conformity. This one size fits all spirituality, style of life, a line up and shut up mentality. No. Stop trying to be someone else and be who God has created you to be. And that's gonna take shape at different times and in different ways. You know, when I started as the pastor here 15 years ago, I had never been the lead pastor of a church. I'd been in ministry a long time at that point, but this was a new gig. And what I found for the first few years I was here, I wasn't [00:32:28] Speaker C: being myself as a pastor. I was trying to be another pastor. [00:32:35] Speaker B: I was looking around at pastors that I admired or pastors that I thought were doing well. [00:32:39] Speaker C: Some of them have crashed and burned since then. God help us all. [00:32:42] Speaker B: But I was looking around and I thought, well, I'll be like that pastor. I'll try to be like that pastor because that's what you deserve. I want to be a good pastor for you. And so I lookin around and I found that after a couple years I was wearing pretty thin because I was trying to be another pastor. I wasn't being myself. I wasn't being who God had created me to be. And it wasn't until I let go of these false images and these attempts to be something else and someone else somewhere else, quite frankly, that I was able to then become slowly, slowly. It's still a work in progress who God has created me to be. Growing, confessing, not perfect. That's not what I mean. But be who God had created me [00:33:29] Speaker C: to be as the pastor of this church. [00:33:32] Speaker B: And that was a learning curve for me. And I run into a lot of [00:33:35] Speaker C: people in my life and I'm thinking [00:33:37] Speaker B: of one particular friend right now who you can see they don't know who they are. And they're always chasing after something. Some endeavor, some undertaking, some trips. They're glomming onto certain groups and certain friends in an attempt to discover who they are because they don't know who they are. And you want to just say, be you. Be who God has created you to be. Stop trying to chase after all these false ideas of who you think you [00:34:08] Speaker C: should be and be yourself. [00:34:12] Speaker B: There are people in your life who [00:34:13] Speaker C: need you to encourage them to be themselves. [00:34:16] Speaker B: Stop trying to measure up to somebody else's standards or be pulled around by the lies of social media or the latest trend. And there's many young people today who need to hear this word of strong affirmation. God has created you for Himself and He's committed to you being you. [00:34:38] Speaker C: He wants you. He created you for Himself [00:34:44] Speaker B: and He wants you to be you in a way that will actually blow your mind. And so they can hear the message to go with God, lean into his word and his will and just see [00:34:54] Speaker C: where he'll take you, see what he'll make of you. But as we've said, Ubu is not a carte blanche excuse to live however [00:35:07] Speaker B: you want to live and be whoever you want to be without any regard [00:35:10] Speaker C: for God's will or God's ways or his desire or his direction for your life. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Ubu can't be an affirmation of every [00:35:18] Speaker C: desire or whim that we have that's the road to destruction. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Ubu cannot be an excuse to deny [00:35:26] Speaker C: our bodies or reject God's design. [00:35:28] Speaker B: We were created to reflect the triune [00:35:31] Speaker C: God, not our own selfish desires. [00:35:34] Speaker B: In order to become who you truly are, you must pursue who God truly is because it's in his image that you were made, not the other way around. It says, we grow in the knowledge [00:35:47] Speaker C: of God, we will grow in understanding of ourselves. [00:35:51] Speaker B: These are bound up together because we were made in God's image. [00:35:55] Speaker C: When we know God more we know ourselves more. Knowing God, knowing ourselves, it goes together. [00:36:04] Speaker B: St. Augustine in the 4th century prayed [00:36:06] Speaker C: a prayer that went like this. Let me know you, O God, and let me know myself. That is all I ask. Let me know you, O God, and let me know myself. That is all I ask. In order for you to be you, you must know the one who is I am. [00:36:26] Speaker B: A little more from the Apostle Paul [00:36:28] Speaker C: will close us out again from Ephesians [00:36:30] Speaker B: a little later on in chapter four, we hear a pretty clear U be [00:36:34] Speaker C: you message, but with important nuances, of course. [00:36:37] Speaker B: Here's what he says in Ephesians 4. 22, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put [00:36:45] Speaker C: off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be [00:36:51] Speaker B: made new in the attitude of your [00:36:53] Speaker C: minds, and to put on the the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Now, is Paul saying you be you here? Yeah, actually he is. He most definitely is. But he's saying you be your new self, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. Now that's amazing stuff. But at the very same time, this sits in stark contrast to the you he does not want you to be. Stark contrast to your old you. Don't be your old you, Paul says, which is being corrupted by deceitful desires. [00:37:43] Speaker C: You be your new you in Christ. Be your new self, [00:37:51] Speaker B: created in Christ [00:37:52] Speaker C: Jesus for the works that God has [00:37:55] Speaker B: set apart for you to do. Be your new self, being made righteous [00:37:59] Speaker C: and holy like your God. See the contrast? In order to become truly you, you need to pursue who you are in Christ. You be you. Let's pray. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you have created us for yourself. What an amazing truth. May our eyes be fixed upon you. [00:38:30] Speaker B: And I pray that by your Holy [00:38:32] Speaker C: Spirit today you would correct in us [00:38:35] Speaker B: any ways in which we've received cultural messaging that would suggest that we can be who we are truly meant to [00:38:44] Speaker C: be, apart from you. We can't. We confess our complete and utter need for you to save us, to shape us to be in us and walking [00:39:01] Speaker B: with us to be, revealing yourself to us so that we can understand you [00:39:08] Speaker C: and as a result ourselves, so that we can be truly who you've created us to be. And today I just pray that this message would be a message of freedom and of life that would be on [00:39:21] Speaker B: our lips and in our minds and transforming the way we think about ourselves and think about each other, but in a way that helps us decode the cultural messaging so that we can share the wonderful glorious truth of your good [00:39:35] Speaker C: news Jesus with all that we come in contact with, so that the message of glorious freedom, of us becoming who we have been created to be in you, would be a message that brings life to all who are dead, freedom to all those who are enslaved. Make us, Lord, into who you have created us to truly be. And we pray this in the name of the God in whose image we are made, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Thanks for listening in today. We hope you feel encouraged and challenged. If you know someone who would benefit from what you have heard today, please share this podcast. For more information or if you have questions, you can connect with us through our website, Erickson Covenant Cat. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Erickson Covenant Church.