No more peer pressure!

Peter Baker said he asked a 100-year-old man what the best thing about being 100 was, and he said, "There's no peer pressure." Unfortunately the rest of us live with it.

Here are my notes on Peter's second sermon from last night...

Consumerism tells us we can buy an identity. Noel Coward penned, "Stay young and beautiful if you want to be loved." And no wonder we have an identity problem, when society tells us we're just a bunch of random cells.

People can make themselves busy
enough to keep out the major questions like, "Who am I?"

In Psalm 139 David says God knows who we are He's the most important barometer of who we are since He made us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer who led the confessing church's resistance to Hitler said, "Whoever I am, Lord, I am thine."

For David, it is reassuring to know that God really knows him, and that He watches every moment he breaths. At last, someone who knows who I am! Where can I go that God is not there?

In essence David says, "My identity will be maintained by the God who created me." David praises God because He so oversees every element of his life. God's care for us liberates us. We can walk in complete freedom within his principles, knowing they'll be for our best.

David's choice is ours: Do we listen to the messages of the world and believe them or believe in the God who made us, shaped us and loves us? David chooses to let the Lord make his identity.

Why would you want society to define you when the God of the universe loves you as you are?

The spark of God's creative genius was a part of every stage of David's development.

David was living in a world in which he bares the responsibility of a kingdom, where his own son plots his downfall, but he finds God to speak directly to who he is.

Will we let God be God or will we keep running from him in futile flight? If we have any sense we'll turn down the volume on this world's messages and hear the passionate love God demonstrated by sending his own Son to reveal himself to us.

You don't have to search for an image if you know Jesus, you have been given one by Christ. Whatever else may be true of you isn't nearly so important as our relationship with Jesus. As we grow in the security of that relationship we have freedom from peer pressure. The Creator of the world loves us.

When my identity is in Christ I am free to see others as they really are, loved by God.

I was going to be home in NYC during that sermon, but when my flight was canceled Friday we thought we might need to switch Saturday night's performance to Sunday night. So I'm here in Chicago an extra day, maybe just so you you could read this.