Thursday, August 27, 2015
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Some people get a lot of recognition at their high school graduation. I got a lot of recognition at my graduation practice. We were out on this athletic field. I still remember it was a beautiful June day. We were lined up in alphabetical order like we would be at commencement. Now, the idea is to march up to the platform in step to the familiar strains of the traditional graduation march "Pomp and Circumstance."
Sounds easy enough, right? Sure! I was listening to the same music as everyone else; I just had my own original cadence. All I can remember from that commencement rehearsal is the faculty coordinator yelling, "Hutchcraft, will you please get in step!" Life is tough for klutzes.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Drumbeat of a Satisfied Life."
That cry that echoes from my graduation practice is actually a voice every one of us hears throughout our lifetime, "Will you please get in step!" It comes from your friends, your family, your culture, your coworkers, your boss; generally from the people you want to please. "Would you get in step?"
Now, the tune I heard that day in high school was the tune I should have been marching to. The tune you're being asked to march to by your world may very well be a tune you should not get in step with, even though the whole class seems to be marching to it.
Our word for today from the Word of God, Romans 12:2. It follows God's command to respond to His love by offering "your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship." Then verse 2, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world," (Okay, that's the tune most people are marching to.), "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
God says, "I've got a different beat for you to march to; a better beat." And what happens when you march to the beat of the heavenly drummer? It says, "Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is; His good, pleasing and perfect will." Living in God's will? Well, that's the goal of every serious Jesus follower. It's the best, the most pleasing, it's the most perfect way you can spend your years on planet earth.
But there's another beat, often much louder than the beat of God's way of living. And most of the people around you, they're in step with it, often even other believers. But conforming to what we can call the world beat will ultimately cause you to miss how you were born to live and what you were born to be. It's called God's will.
Look, I know you feel the pressure to conform to what the important people in your world expect you to be and expect you to do. The world beat tells you what you have to do to in order to have friends, to get ahead, to be their definition of success, you've got to do what they say is fun, what they say is normal. The world beat says divorce is okay if things get tough. Sex is okay without a lifetime commitment. Security is a good job, a good income, money in the bank.
And then along comes the radical beat of the Lord Jesus, who's got a totally different definition of success, of security, of fun, of cool, of commitment, of love. And as you spend time with this Jesus in His love letter, the Bible, He renews your mind and replaces the cadence of "world think" with His better beat - "eternity think". What's going to be there forever - live for that.
Maybe you are missing the will of God right now because you've not taken a risk to leave the beat everyone around you says you should march to. And they're shouting to you, "Will you please get in step!" All the while, your Savior is whispering to your heart, "Will you please get in step with Me?"
Isn't it time you stepped out and you start marching to the beat that you were created to follow?