In this talk from our annual Baccalaureate Service, Pastor Matt Metzger shares insights on faith, personal growth, and the challenges of transitioning into new life stages. He emphasizes the importance of understanding one's identity in God's eyes, especially during times of change and uncertainty. Through anecdotes from his experiences with athletes and personal stories, he encourages listeners to embrace life's curveballs and recognize God's unwavering presence and love.

Matt Metzger grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, while his wife Rachel grew up in Madison, attending Blackhawk Church from a very young age. They met at Wheaton College in Illinois, got married at Blackhawk in 1994, and then worked together in youth ministry at Matt’s home church in Ft. Lauderdale. Before moving to Madison, they served for three years at a high adventure ministry in Colorado.

Matt joined the Blackhawk staff in September 2000 as the College and Young Adult Pastor and began his role as Lead Pastor of Blackhawk Downtown in 2010. In July of 2021, Matt took on the role of Senior Pastor of Blackhawk Church. Rachel is on staff part-time with the Spiritual Formation team, serving as Next Steps Coordinator. They enjoy using their gym membership and staying active through doubles beach volleyball, wake surfing, pickleball, and hiking. Matt and Rachel are both big fans of UW sports. They love spending time with their daughters Hannah and Leah, but also have enjoyed the new adventure of becoming empty nesters.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing Matt Metzger, who's the senior pastor of Black Hawk Church. He joined Black Hawk staff in September of 2000 as the college and young adults pastor and began his role as the lead pastor of Black Hawk Downtown in 2010. In July of 2021, Matt took on the role of senior pastor of Black Hawk Church. His wife, Rachel, is on staff part-time with the spiritual formation team, serving as next steps coordinator.

Matt and Rachel are both big fans of UW Sports. They love spending times with their daughters, Hannah and Leah, but have also enjoyed the new adventure of becoming empty nesters. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Pastor Matt Metzger.

Well, hey, welcome everybody. is a, man, it is an honor, a real honor to be in this moment with you all and get the chance to be able to talk. Natasha, thank you so much for all of that. Like she said, my name is Matt. I am a senior pastor at Black Hawk Church, been a part of Black Hawk for many, many years and actually got to be on the ground level of seeing Upper House actually be created.

And I know that they don't like ever to really have attention placed on themselves, but I'd love just to take a minute for us to be able to give our gratitude to the staff at Upper House for everything it is that they do around here. For so many of you, for so many of you, I know that this place has been instrumental in your spiritual journey and parents, I just can't tell you how many hours your students have spent in a space like this.

studying or maybe studying, you know, I mean, where they're supposed to be, but more hanging out with friends. But the amount of Bible studies and worship nights and gatherings and incredible conversation that has happened in a space like this is just hard to wrap your mind around. And here at Blackhawk, we consider upper house family. And so it's great just to have a chance to be able to be here in this space.

Seeing it used again, just in an incredible way to help people understand the love that Jesus has for them. So I, as Natasha was saying, a senior pastor at Blackhawk Church, one of the privileges that I have that has come up in the last decade or so is getting a chance to actually work with some different UW sports teams. And I have a chance to be able to be around them at different times. And occasionally even to do pregame.

Bible studies are devotionals. That's not something that you read about in the news very often at all, but those things do happen for players, for an optional opportunity. It's kind of funny because I actually have had the chance to be able to do that with some different sports teams who are coming into town to play against the University of Wisconsin. They'll contact me and ask me if I'll do that with them and I'll always say, yeah, absolutely. But what I'm thinking in the back of my mind is...

So yeah, I'm gonna get together with you and pray with you. We can talk about the Bible, but you realize I am full on rooting against you. know, like, I am gonna pray for you and then I am hoping that you get pounded by the Badgers, you know? And okay, this is another, I don't normally talk about this, statistics so far of all of the visiting teams that I have ever done a devotional for, not one of them has ever beat the Badgers. Can I get an amen?

from people in the room. I mean, I think the athletic department should use me as like a secret weapon if they knew those statistics. But anytime that I get a chance to be with some of the different teams, two of the teams I get to work with most are the men's basketball team and women's volleyball team, which is always kind of funny because I am a five eight man. And most of the people who I am with stand at least, I don't know, around a foot taller than me. So as I'm with them, I sort of look like Frodo Baggins or the mayor of Munchkinland.

And that is the world that I'm in. But anytime that I get a chance to be able to do something like this with them pregame, there's something really that I want them to understand more than anything else. You know, I know that these different athletes, as they come in, they're students. They're going through life just the way that any student is, ages 18 to 23 or so. The same space of life that for so many of you, you're in right now.

And the thing that I want them to know more than anything else is they step out of one of those times where we're together. I want them to understand the truth of what God says about them. Reason why is because, you know, not long after we're going to be together, I know that they're headed into the Cole Center or the Field House or Camp Randall Stadium. And they're going to be surrounded by all kinds of people who have opinions about them. All kinds of things that they're thinking.

fans of our team, fans of the other team, newscasters who were there to cover everything, people who were watching the game live or watching it online somewhere else that are going to be posting all of their opinions out there for everybody to read. And so the thing that I want for them before they ever put on a jersey, before they're lacing up their shoes, I want them to be reminded of what God says is true about them. Because if that doesn't

take place, the thing that is going to happen for so many of them is they are going to be in a place where the opinions of other people affect the value that they feel in their own lives. So if they have a great game, they're encouraged, then they feel like they're on cloud nine. And if they have a horrible game where they are under the bus, they are going to hear about it and feel like their lives are under the bus. And so every time that I'm with them, the thing that I am trying to do is to remind them

where before they ever take the court of what it is that the God of the universe says about them. Okay. Why do I bring that up? Well, because for so many of you here in the next 24 to 36 hours, you are going to be graduating from this place and you're going to be starting like a new season of life. Like you could kind of look like this little bit of time that we have is sort of like a pregame opportunity.

for you right now. It's like we're all sitting in a locker room. And by the way, you all look really good for a locker room conversation right now. And we're having a chance before you step out into this next season of life. I know that for some of you, you're headed into all kinds of different experiences because of the degree that you got. It's opened up opportunities for jobs and careers here in Madison or in Dane County, in the Midwest, other areas of the country, even other areas of the world that you're headed to. And you're excited about those things.

Others of you, you got done with your degree and you're going, why did I study that? Because I'm not so sure now I'm really all that interested in it. For some of you, you're looking at life and you're like, I actually don't know what it is that's coming next. And I potentially, I am headed home. I'm going to be living back in my old bedroom again and potentially, hopefully finding a job at a cafe or something like that in the area.

That was me, I was having a conversation with a couple of students before this. And my story, I got done with college, I went to Wheaton College in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Yes, shout out to Wheaton, yes. And I remember graduating being with all of my friends, saying goodbye to them, packing all of my stuff, shipping at home, getting on a plane, having walked away from all kinds of friendships that had made so much difference in my life. And within 24 hours, I was sleeping back in my old bedroom in my Mickey Mouse bunk bed.

And I'm thinking, how in the world did I get here? Because this is not what I expected in that moment. And so as you look at this pregame time where you're kind of finishing up your time, whatever it is that you're doing here, I know that for so many of you, you're headed to grad school. For some of you, you're in grad school, you're headed into your PhD. For all of us, we're at different places, different stages, looking at what is to come next. And the thing is, as you spend time with friends,

and extended family and all kinds of different people, there's a question that they are going to ask you. And that is, so what's coming next? Don't some of you just hate that question? What's coming next? And you look at things and you feel like, if I'm honest with them, and then you are honest with them, and you can see the opinion that they begin to make in their mind, just from their facial expression.

And the thing is, is if you allow it to, all of a sudden the opinions of other people can scream so loud in your head that it begins to tell you something that you begin to buy into on your value. And so in this pregame moment, what I want to do just for a moment is to be able to remind you, like the athletes that I work with, what it is that God says about you before you graduate. What he has been saying about you before you were ever even born.

Because I am here to tell you that the God of the universe loves you more than you can understand or imagine. Look at a couple of these different verses real quickly.

Zephaniah 3, 17. This is one I share with athletes all the time. The Lord your God is in your midst. The mighty one will save you. He will rejoice over you with his joy. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. Our college pastor, Michael Napstead is the one that got me hooked onto this verse originally. And as I have unpacked it myself, it is just an amazing concept to think that like,

The God of the universe actually sings over you. Have you ever sung over someone? I never have in my life. But God is so giddy about you. I see parents right now who are like tapping their students on the back going, remember those days when I used to sing? The God of the universe sings over you because he loves you more than you can understand or imagine. Let's go to the next one. Give thanks to the Lord.

For he is good, his steadfast love endures forever. Go to the next one. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Here's the thing, the reason why I want you look at these verses, I'm guessing that for so many of you, you probably grew up in church type settings where you went to Sunday school or vacation Bible school or within youth group, but my guess is,

Some of those verses probably are familiar to you. And the problem sometimes with familiar verses is they can become so familiar that they just become something that's like in one ear and out the other. And we miss the depth of what's being said. If I can encourage you in any way it's to take passages like that, man, put them to memory. Set them as your screen saver on your phone so whenever you need that moment you can look down and be reminded. Put them on a three by five card on your mirror because you need to be a person.

who remembers the fact of what the God of the universe says is true about you. Because just like athletes here at school, when we come to a place of realizing everything that we need is found in him, and there is nothing that we can actually do to make him love us anymore, and no mistake or anything that we've been ashamed that we've done over the last four years could cause us to love him less. When we come to a deeper understanding of that, it sets us up in life to be able to live

and confident and freedom, regardless of what anyone else thinks, because we know what the God of the universe who loves us more we can imagine really thinks about us. Because here's the reality. This is what we've been saying. You all right now, you're in a stage of life where you are in transition. You're kind of going from one stage of life into another. I mean, you could say some of you are going to be adulting now.

where you're having to pay for stuff and all of a sudden life looks differently as you start to look at your own auto insurance and your own bank accounts and all the different things that you're going to be setting up. You're gonna have someone at a job who starts to talk to you about retirement and you're like, All of those things are coming your direction. You're in a transition. And the thing that we know about transitions, even when you're looking forward to them.

Here's something to remember, everything that grows changes and everything that changes goes through transition. yet transitions often really different and uncomfortable. Because in those situations, it can be like the lights get turned out in life and we're not exactly sure what direction to go. It's like we have those times where something happens and we're thrown a curve ball in life.

And we think to ourselves, huh, I didn't see that coming. You ever had one of those days where something happened to you and you're like, huh, I didn't see that coming. I didn't wake up thinking that's what I was going to be doing. A couple of years ago, I was headed to basketball practice. I tried to get over to be with the team probably one day a week for practice, really for just about an hour to be around and encourage them. And two years ago, the UW team, they had had a particular streak where they had lost a couple of games back to back to teams.

No one really thought they should have lost to. And so I walked into practice that day and these guys, were having a hard practice. Coach guard was like kind of giving it to them and they were running a particular drill that the team never looks forward to where they, they, on one side of the key, they have to go up and jump and try to block a person coming towards the basket without fouling. And they come down from that. Then they run to the other side of the key and they have to take a charge from a guy coming at them, like with a padded.

you know, big old pad thing. I don't know what it's called. We'll just call it a pad. So, and hits them with that and they fall on their back. And then as they are on their back, one of the coaches rolls a ball towards the other end. Hold on one second. Sorry. that's all right. No problem. So one of the coaches will roll the ball towards the, towards the half court line and they have to run and dive to try to save the ball before it gets to half court. So I'm watching this drill. Players are discouraged. Everybody knows. All of a sudden, Greg Gard blows his whistle and says,

Metzger, you're in.

And I'm like standing on the sideline, you know, like looking at my phone and like, Hey guys, how are you? Yeah. Praying for you, you know, like whatever. And Metzger you're in. And so I like set my phone down. look at him. Are you serious? He's like, you're in. And so I walk over and the drill begins and the photographer was there that day. That's what you started to see. So there's a picture of me from the beginning. I mean, just look at my vertical in comparison, like

That is just sad, you know? And so I'm trying to do that. Then I run to the other side and there's me getting hit by one of the coaches and then falling onto my, I mean, you can go to the next one. Look at Coach Gard, like he's just enjoying this way too much, seeing what's happening to me. And then I go running to the other end after a ball as fast as I can and go diving for the ball, saving it right before it gets to the end line.

and then all the players come and tackle me, I think to cheer for me, but it was mostly they were just going, are you okay? You know, cause I'm the 53 year old gray hair guy that's trying to make this happen. I walked out of the gym that day and thought, I didn't see that coming. I was a curve ball. I was not expecting. You ever experienced curve balls in your life? Here's the thing. Sometimes they're curve balls like that. A lot of times curve balls can be things that like, were not really legit.

It's the situations of life that we don't see coming. And all of a sudden, in those moments, we turn to God and we go.

Those moments where, like as we look at things going on in life, where we're going, it's like the world goes dark. And all of a sudden we look up to God and say, God, what's up? And he turns to us and he goes, well, I'm up. And I'm in the middle of this situation with you right now. And if you'll actually, if you will allow me to, I will do some of my deepest, most intimate personal work in your life.

if you'll allow me to be in this place with you. You know, I would guess that if you have favorite Bible stories, some of the favorite Bible stories you have actually exemplify this whole idea. Think back to, who can we go to? Let's go to Noah. Noah, Noah, who is told by God to build a massive boat on dry land. and by the way, it's never rained before. Or how about Abraham? Abraham, God tells Abraham to pick up and move.

from the place where he has always lived with his entire family to a land that he has no idea where he's going and God will just show him when he gets there. How about Mary? Mary, an angel shows up to her and tells her that she's pregnant even though she's never slept with a man. and by the way, the one that is inside you is the son of God and will be the savior of the world. Good luck explaining that to people.

You see, every one of these situations, curve ball, you were not expecting. And all of a sudden they have to look at, and they turn to God and they go, God, what's up? And all of those stories, God goes, yep, I'm up. My favorite one that comes to mind for me is actually the story of Joseph. There's kind of been like a resurgence of the musical, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Some of you have heard of that before. That's the Joseph we're talking about. One of 12 sons of Jacob.

And he was dad's favorite and his brothers hated him to the point where they wanted to kill him. And so one day when they finally get him alone, far away from camp, you know, out far from his dad, they decide they're going to kill him. But then they changed their minds and decided rather than to kill him, they're just simply going to sell dad's favorite son to a band of Midianites who were traveling by and he would be sold into slavery. Incredible story. The last few chapters of Genesis, if you ever want to look at the story altogether, but in Genesis,

Chapter 39, verses one and two, it says this about Joseph. Now, Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. And the Lord was with Joseph.

Isn't it? You see, because for a lot of us, think, well, if God is with me, it means that everything is working out. If God's with me, it's not my brothers have sold me into slavery. If God's with me, it means that I'm still with my dad and my brothers have been sold into slavery. But that's not the story that we see. We see that everything in it from our perspective is going wrong for Joseph. And yet it still says that God was with him. And it gets worse because Potiphar's wife begins to take a liking to Joseph.

tries to get Joseph to sleep with her, he does the right thing running for his life. And this embarrasses Potiphar's wife to such a great level that she lies and says that Joseph tried to take advantage of her. And that's where we pick up the story again. Verse 20, Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in prison, where was he? In prison. The Lord was with him.

and he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. great. With me. So the prison warden wore tight. Isn't that awesome?

You see, we get the idea if God is with us, things are working out the way that we want them to. We're able to more move towards the American dream. We get the job, we get the promotion, we get the scholarship, we get the house, we have the spouse, we have the kids, we have the place in the country that we want to live in. Everything is working out right. Why? Because God is with us. And here's the thing, there's nothing wrong with moving towards any of those things. When those become more important to us than the idea of God,

Those things, they all of sudden have become a God to us and they can never hold the weight that they were actually intended. And the reality is that within our lives, there are going to be all kinds of times where things don't work out the way that you thought they were going to. And God is with you. I was supposed to be giving this talk last year for Baccalaureate here. And I wasn't able to because two days before Baccalaureate, I got a call that my

Mom in South Florida had unexpectedly passed away. And so rather than stepping into a place where I was going to talk about the idea of God being with you, I found myself on a plane headed to Florida going, God, what is up? And it was like, I got to live all of the things that I was going to be sharing with a group of graduates. You see, this is the thing that I can promise you. It's that life is going to throw you curbs.

that you don't accept. There are going to be times where the job doesn't work out and the promotion doesn't happen. And the person that you have fallen in love with says that they are no longer in love with you. The place that you were hoping to be in the country no longer has an open door for you. You're going to hear words like, you're going to have family members who get sick and hear words like cancer. And in all of those situations, I promise you, God

is completely with you in the same way that he was with Joseph. You see, during those years where Joseph was a slave and in prison, God was doing some of his, get this, some of his deepest, most intimate work in the life of a young man to transform him into a man of God who would one day practically save the entire known world. See, there are things that God desires to do inside of you.

And so when curve balls come and those things happen, did God cause it or did he allow it? Look, I don't know. There are theologians that still debate those things. And if I got into conversations, they could probably convince me on either side. But I do know this. God loves you more than you can understand or imagine. And he desires to take every situation that you walk through in this broken world in order to transform you more into who it is that he desires for you to be. What did Joseph do?

When curveball came his way, he acted as one who was confident that the God of the universe was with him. I prayer for you, whatever it is that you're stepping into from this place, regardless if you're incredibly excited about it or still trying to figure out what's next or disappointed what is to come, is that you would receive from the hand of God, allowing him to be the one who defines you for who you truly are.

and allowing him to be the one to show you the work, the deep, intimate work that he desires to do in your life to help you understand more of who he desires for you. So, congratulations. I'm so excited to hear what it is that God has for you in this next season. God bless you as you begin.