Graduation Sunday 2024

What does it look like to be successful?

Forbes gave a list of “15 Powerful Quotes On Success”. Here are a few...

“Success is No Accident” - Pele

He continues this quote by adding “It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing.”

“Success is Not Final, Failure is Not Fatal: it is the Courage to Continue that Counts” - Winston Churchill

“Don’t Count the Days, Make the Days Count” - Muhammed Ali

“Action is the Foundational Key to Success” - Pablo Picaso

Success REQUIRES Motivation

Motivation REQUIRES a GOAL! …a WHY

...Something beyond just a pretty picture and a cute saying.

When you want to succeed.....

Check out this video on what it takes to succeed and then we’ll dive into Scripture to see what this looks like.

The Disciples Graduation Day!

Many Biblical scholars that I have read believe that many of the disciples met Jesus when they were teens

Treated like teens,

acted like teens, Matthew 11:25, Luke 10:21, John 13:33, John 21

most were unmarried (Most married after turning 18 at that time),

Ray Vanderlaan writes, “according to the Avot 5 (from the Mishnah: rabbinical commentary that was added to the Old Testament), what we learn of the ancient Jewish education traditions, that scripture study begins at age 5; Mishnah study at age 10; Torah obligations at age 13; continued rabbinical study at age 15 if they were chosen to be tutored by a formal teacher or apprenticed to a trade; they would be married at age 18; and their formal teaching would begin about age 30.”

AND THEN...

They spent three years following around the Savior of the world. They watched Him die. They saw Him resurrected, spent a few more weeks with Him, then watched Him ascend to heaven. They were also likely thinking, now what?

The disciples had to wait for what was next.

Acts 1:9–11 CSB

9 After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”

The Scripture paints the picture of the disciples actually watching Jesus ascend up to heaven with their own eyes. This is different from previous recorded experiences. Jesus did not just disappear. He did not get taken up in a whirlwind, like Elijah. We are left believing that Jesus ascended by lifting in a majestic way, unaided by any other forces. As He rose, a cloud hid Jesus from their sight.

Remember being a kid with a helium balloon? When you’d release it outside, you would stand there and watch it fly up into the sky. Eventually, it would become a small dot and you’d strain your eyes to keep it in your sights. Eventually, you were just looking up at the clouds, but you’d keep watching a few seconds longer just to make sure the balloon was truly gone.

That’s how I picture the disciples in this moment. They are watching Jesus a little bit past when they can actually see Him anymore. It was probably dead silent in their group. Everyone was putting all of their effort towards focusing on their ascending Leader. They were catching the very last glimpse of Jesus in the flesh on Earth.

When they finally looked down, two angels were there among them. They seem to interrupt the disciples and mildly call them out. Look again at verse 11:

Acts 1:11 CSB

11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”

The angels were like the gun that fires to signify the start of a track race. This was the closest experience the disciples had to a graduation. Maybe they didn’t walk across the stage like some of you will do in short order, but this was the beginning of their next chapter. For the disciples, the past three years had been preparing them for life without Jesus with them in bodily form on Earth. The disciples had to take what they had learned and apply it now that they were out on their own. Graduates, you are in the same spot. All of your education to this point has been to prepare you for what’s next.

So, now what? We can learn many things about how to continue from this point forward from the disciples.

1. Jesus has empowered you to proclaim Him wherever you are.

The last instructions that the Disciples were given by Jesus was to GO!

Acts 1:8 CSB

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

For the Disciples, this was a two main parts to this: Salvation and the coming Kingdom program. Where it connects for us is the salvation message. In Romans we read from the Apostle Paul

Romans 1:16 CSB

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

and again in Romans 15:20-21

Romans 15:20–21 CSB

20 My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else’s foundation, 21 but, as it is written, Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.

One of our primary purposes in life as a Christian was best summed up by Charles Spurgeon who said “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” - Charles Spurgeon

2. Prayer is critical to discovering what’s next.

After Christ ascended, the disciples spent time waiting on God’s leading by spending time in prayer.

Acts 1:12–14 CSB

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 They all were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

They didn’t know what to do and yet, even as young men and women, they knew that they needed to pray. It doesn’t talk about how they stressed, wrote down the pros and cons of different choices to make, consult “google” for wisdom....THEY PRAYED. They TRUSTED in God for guidance

Isaiah 58:11 CSB

11 The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry.

Matthew 10:39 CSB

39 Anyone who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because of me will find it.

We see this greatly in the life of Paul

In Philippians 1:21

Philippians 1:21 CSB

21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

“In this statement, the apostle Paul is saying that everything he has tried to be, everything he is, and everything he looked forward to being pointed to Christ. From the time of Paul’s conversion until his martyrdom, every move he made was aimed at advancing the knowledge, gospel, and church of Christ. Paul’s singular aim was to bring glory to Jesus.” - Michael Houdmann (GotQuestions.org)

1 Corinthians 2:2 CSB

2 I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 11:1 CSB

1 Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ.

Philippians 3:7–11 CSB

7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.

And this is NOT something that we should be doing alone.

3. You need a community of believers

We read about how the disciples were gathered together and throughout the book of Acts, the disciples and other Christians are regularly seen striving and praying together.

The author of the book of Hebrews tells us this Hebrews 10:24-25

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

I LOVE team sports, group projects, etc... People that are like-minded and unified in pursuit of a shared goal and purpose. It’s especially exciting when you see a team that is so focused, so determined that it simply pours out of them that they want to succeed as bad as they want to breathe.

As a Christian, in your pursuit of following Christ, do you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe?

Colossians 3:23–24 CSB

23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, 24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.