The Bible says in Hebrews 2:7 the following words: “God has crowned us with glory and honor.”  When I was a child, one of my favorite restaurants had to be Burger King.  My mother would take my brother and I to Burger King.  We liked to go, not only because it was the home of the Whopper, but also because they gave us those crowns.  You know, those crowns, those paper, flimsy crowns?  We would take the crowns and put them on our heads.  I have a bucket-head, a huge head, and after a couple of hours of wearing my crown, my crown inevitably would break.  Then Ben and I would fight over his crown.  Even though wearing those flimsy crowns caused pain and remorse and bitterness and conflict, we still loved for mom to take us to the local Burger King.

I believe our search for a self-esteem, in fact, for the supreme self-esteem, is man’s blind desire to find his lost crown.  We’re looking for our lost crown.  We can’t seem to find it.  Most of us are satisfied spending our entire lives trying on Burger King, flimsy, perishable, paper-like crowns, instead of God’s crown that He has tailor-made for you and for me.  We try the crown of appearance on, don’t we?  We’ve talked about that.  If I can look good, if I can dress right, if I can have that physique, then that will surely give me a proper self-esteem.”  It doesn’t work.  Others try the achievement crown, and that leads to frustration.  “If I can only achieve, if I can only climb the ladder.”  Then we slip on the acquisition crown, which says that if I can gain these symbols of success, that will do it.

Today, however, I don’t want to talk to you about symbols.  I want to talk to you about substance.  I want to talk to those of you who are tired of trying on flimsy crowns.  If we had the eyes of God, I believe in front of all of us would be piles and piles of littered, Burger-King-type temporary crowns.  But God says, in fact His love blasts into your life and my life and proclaims, “I don’t want you to put on those flimsy crowns anymore.

Ed Young Ministries: I could barely speak.  Finally, I flew back to the Dallas Ft. Worth area, did the Saturday evening service and I talked to my doctor who attends Fellowship.  I said, “Doc, my uvula is messed up.  Look at this thing.”