Be Unique

Thanks/Honor

Congrats

18 years to get here

You are Unique

No other graduating class in history has faced what you faced to get here.

You are unique in every aspect of what you’ve gone through, the requirements that have been put on you, and the types of learning you’ve had to take on to arrive at your graduation date.

For decades, the pattern had been set. Standards were raised, tests were given, and students would graduate, but you are the first graduating class whose first years in High School were consumed by COVID-19, volatile politics, and a rethinking of how education works all in the same year.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, all of us adults have just been trying to adapt to the changes as quickly as we can, but the truth is *whisper* we have just been making it up as we go along and hoping for the best…

You are unique.

In fact, your graduating class reminds me of the opportunity that faced a group of people early in the first century.

The men get all the attention, but there were women in the group as well, Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdaline, Peter’s wife, Salome, Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus.. and they were all given an opportunity.

It’s the same opportunity you have as you graduate… to be unique.

To dare to be different.

This group of people was given instruction by Jesus and sent out to teach the rest of the world what He had taught them.

They had their own type of graduation when Jesus told them:

Matthew 28:18–20 NASB95

18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This was their graduation day. This was the time when they were going from being the students to the teachers.

Now it would be their opportunity to show what they had learned and teach others the same..

Jesus had told them previously:

John 14:12 NASB95

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

Now they were given the opportunity to do just that. Get out there and tell the world about Jesus and what He had taught them.

You have the opportunity as you leave this place to use what you have learned here and make a difference in the world.

All the world has recognized that you are a unique generation and this one thing we know: you will have to find a different path than any of us before.

There was a time when one could predict what a person would do for a living or what impact they would have on society based on their family line, what job their parents had, what city they were born in, or what high school they graduated from.

That time has past. Now you have the opportunity to do something entirely unique. Completely different.

You have the opportunity to be the pavers of a new path. A blazer of a new trail.

The reason you remind me of these followers of Jesus in the first century is because you have the opportunity to be described just as they in Acts 17:6: “These are they who have turned the world upside down!”

You have the opportunity to be the ones who turn the world upside down.

You are not the generation of tomorrow, you are the generation of today.

Your purpose is not in the future, it is in the decisions you make today.

I find one key of these that were described as world changers way back in the beginning of their journey in Acts 4:13

Acts 4:13 NASB95

13 Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.

In other words, the thing that made them unique is not what they had been through, but that they had been with Jesus…

You have the opportunity to be the most influential generation to ever be raised in the United States of America…

And I admonish you today to be known.

Be known for your excellence.

Be known for your determination.

Be known for your intelligence.

Be known for being different.

But most of all, be known to have been with Jesus.

You have the opportunity to change the world. And today, you have the opportunity to be who God has called you to be.

Be Unique.

Pray