2025 Commencement Speech

Life Lesson from King David

Good Afternoon, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks for the opportunity and honor of giving the 2025 commencement.

Congratulations to you Graduates as you have accomplished a major life feat. You have unlocked an achievement that opens the door to innumerable possibilities. It truly is a day to remember and celebrate.

Over the next few days you will get advice from many people, some good, some bad. Over the next few months, you will begin to start the next big steps in your life, maybe you are leaving for college, enlisting in the military, or entering workforce. Over the next few years something is coming that as a kid you dreaded and as a teen you yearned for; you will be confronted by the giant that is adulthood. It will come at you hard and fast. You will realize that there are so many things you did not plan for, nor could you. You will look at your parents and be amazed at the many things they balanced and juggled that you had no idea about. You will get bills and be responsible for yourself and possibly others.

Things will begin to come at you that you did not think about, some good, some bad and at some point amongst all of this you will have to decide what kind of adult you are going to be. Amidst a chaotic world, marred by sin and confusion, you will be expected to do something. Perhaps you will become a doctor, a teacher, a business person, a solider, a mom, or a dad. Yet no matter what you do, you must do something. Adulthood refuses to let you sit it out. Yet, as important as what you do is, how you do it is even more important. There are many doctors, teachers, business people, soldiers, moms and dads. Some are good and some are bad. How will you be? What kind of person are you and will you be? What will sway you? Will you choose to live for yourself or something else? What will you believe? Who will you believe? I offer you no secrets, no special formulas today. There is no get rich quick, super workout, or freebies in life. Adulting is hard work, long hours of studying and preparing, and sacrifice. What I do offer you is an example. King David was called a man after God’s own heart, even as he was a murder and adulterer. Even with the family problems he had. He is the only one in the Bible to get this title. What made him so unique? He is to this day remembered as Israel’s greatest king.

Acts 13:22 ““And after He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, about whom He also said, bearing witness, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’”

“Who will do all my will.” This is the key to shaping yourself in the future. This is the key to success, the key to happiness, peace, joy, love, and all the things you will seek as you venture out.

Here are four lessons from King David.

A. Know God

Its not so much that David knew God, it was the God knew him. David was special because God knew him. It wasn’t that David was a good king or a great warrior, which he was, it was that God knew him.

Psalm 139:13–14 “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.”

You are special, because God made you. You are not accidental, your value does not come because you are a color of some kind, or a gender of some kind, or because you become great at something. You are special because God made you in His image and He knows you. If God knows you, your every thought and deed, then you need to know Him. All the challenges you will walk through going forward will be a battle. The world once it finds out you love the Lord will seek to throw you away and destroy you, to forget you, to marginalize you. David’s own father left him aside. When Samuel called for him to bring his children he lined them up, big and strong, yet at the end he asked if this was all of them. Jesse only then brought up the youngest.

1 Samuel 16:7 “But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.””

Know God, because he knows you. If you don't know him, how will you survive? Who will you turn to? Your parents have carried you for years, picked you up, loved and guided you. Yet they were carried by God. It is hard raising children, one day, Lord willing you will all have children and you will understand how much prayer and trusting in God goes into battling for them, even against them at times. You are at the day now going forward where you will need God. David was great not because of deed, but because he knew God and God knew him.

B. Go to war for God

David was great because he went to war for God. David knew God and God knew him. David didnt win wars, battles, problems because he was great, he won them because God was with him, God battled for him. When the Israelites were shaking in fear of Goliath, David called them on it and then went to battle.

1 Samuel 17:37 “And David said, “Yahweh, who delivered me from the hand of the lion and from the hand of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and may Yahweh be with you.””

When you love God, and boldly put faith in Him, you can and will be able to handle everything life, everything that adulting throws at you. Not because you are able, but because God is able and He will battle for you. You must know God and trust God to go to battle for God. As David challenged Goliath he said.

1 Samuel 17:46–47 ““This day Yahweh will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the camp of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh does not save by sword or by spear; for the battle is Yahweh’s, and He will give you into our hands.””

There is nothing in this world, that can stand against God. If you have given your life to him, if you trust in him, if you boldly and publicly follow him, he will battle for his namesake, and you his loved one will win. Be bold in life, be bold in whatever you do, proclaim and shout the name of the Lord who knitted you together, stand firm in your beliefs no matter where you go and no matter what comes against you. God is victorious and we are victorious in him. David prevailed because God carried him through it. God will do the same to you if you know him and he knows you and you go to battle with sin carrying the name of Christ.

C. Repent to God

As much as we would like to live a life of perfect obedience and victory, never failing we will not. A large problem today is people do not want to accept counsel, who get offended and struggle when they are told they are wrong. The world tells you you can do anything, be anything, to just be you and do what feels right. The problem is that trying to live like that will come into conflict with everything. Why will we listen to people who are the same age as you and have no more experience then you instead of listening to those with years of life experience? Maybe you are like Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.

In 1 Kings 12. Rehoboam came to be king. The people came to him and ask for him to lighten the burden and be kind to them. He went to the elders who told him if he would lighten the load the people would serve him forever. Rehoboam though went to his boys who he grew up with. Their advice?

Legacy Standard Bible CHAPTER 12

Thus you shall speak to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! ‘So now, my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

Well, the country rebelled against him.

Or You can be like David and not go to war, you can go and relax and look upon Bathsheba. You can do as you feel your heart desires and take her, sending her husband off to die. The man after God’s own heart, followed his own heart instead. It lead to adultery, a murdered husband, a lost child. David did what he felt was good for him. Yet a man named Nathan had the courage to battle for God and went to David and told him of his sin through a parable. When David was outraged and wanted to know who had sinned so wickedly. Nathan boldly proclaimed, “you are that man.” See God sent Nathan. The God who knew David and who David knew. Though for a time David rejected God unknowingly because he was blinded by sin, God never threw him away. When you sin, when you fail, when you feel like everything is falling apart and God sends someone to correct you. Do reject them. Hear them. Take counsel, even if you disagree or dont understand.

A key part of being an adult is taking criticism, take counsel, understanding that when you are wrong, correct your course and do better. You will find that life is better, happier, and more peaceful when you do this.

Proverbs 1:33 ““But he who listens to me shall dwell securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil.””

David knew God and God knew him. He battled for God and God battled before him. He repented of his sin and accepted that he was wrong and followed the Lord.

D. Never give up because of God

Lastly, David never gave up. He never quit, not when his father took his other brothers, not when he was rejected by they army, or when the king told him he was not enough, or when Goliath mocked him, or when he was on run from Saul, when he had no where to go, not when he fell into sin, or was called out of sin, not when he lost a child, not when his child rebelled against him and he lost a kingdom. Never give up.

One of my favorite movies is “meet the robinsons.” Its about a little boy who is an orphan and wants a family. He is creative and makes wild inventions that often dont work quite like they should, yet he keeps moving foward and keeps striving and eventually a family finds him. There is a quote at the end from Walt Disney that hits close to home for me because of our adoption journey.

“Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

I think of my daughters and my son that we adopted who never gave up and who God carried through so many things. One who is going to graduate today. I think of the God who has never let me down and always gone before me. The God who never quits, never loses, never is defeated. David was great because he never gave up, because God who knew him and battled before him, and called him to discipline never gave up on him.

2 Samuel 22:2–4 “He said, “Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence. “I call upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies.”

Graduates go forth boldly, if you know the Lord and the Lord knows you. Go to battle for God with righteousness and holiness because God battles for you. When you fail, repent, when you mess up take advice for wise counsel, and keep going, never give up, keep moving forward because God is for you, how can you fail?

Graduates, congratulations.