Plainview School Graduation

Beyond Graduation: Opperating with an eternal perspective.

What an honor it is for me to be asked by Ky, Destiny and Jocelyn to speak for their graduation.

At last years graduation, I began by describing the Whispering Gallery in the National Statutory Hall of the US Capital, a spot where the dome shape of the ceiling and the circular walls create an acoustic affect that causes sound-waves, even as quiet as a whisper, to travel all the way across to the other side. In other words, you can have a politician whispering to another, with another standing 96 feet away, who can literally hear the entire conversation better than if he was standing right there in their midst. My point was that at last years graduation, I was addressing Elijah, and everyone else there was, sort of eavesdropping in on our conversation.

Much of the time that is the way graduation addresses go, and this years is very much the same, except I would suggest that much of what I will say this morning is very much applicable to everyone present.

As the 3 of you are honored today at graduation, your graduation marks a significant transition in life, often filled with uncertainty, hope, and potential.

Jocelyn, as you head to CSU Pueblo this next year with a desire to major in English Education.

Ky, as you make your way to Hutchison Community College wanting to study architecture.

and

Destiny as you go CSU’s main campus in Fort Collins to study Zoology,

I want to challenge the 3 of you to make an adjustment in your perspectives as you are each faced with your biggest transition of your lives up to this point.

It is only natural for you to want to focus on this next year and the next 4 years as you pursue your major and look towards future careers. To a certain degree this is important. But my challenge to you this morning, and quite frankly for everyone present here, is to think beyond, and by thinking beyond, I mean way beyond. This life, each one of us is living, is temporary, but its results are eternal.

The life expectancy for babies being born today is 78.6 years. For you graduating today, upon your birth your life expectancy was 77.9 years. I was born in 1960, and in 1960 the projected life expectancy for me was 66.6 years. Interestingly, 3 of my brother-in-laws each passed away on or before reaching the age of 66. As I said a moment ago, this life is temporary, yet each day we are faced with decisions that can have eternal consequences.

My challenge to you, live with eternity in mind.

You 3 are Gen Z’rs and your entire life has been lived in the age of electronics. When I was born, most peoples phones were part of a party line, my guess is that most kids listening to me right now view a party line completely different than we did in the 60’s. For us, it meant that multiple families in an area shared one phone line. What that meant was, if someone called our house, the phone rang is several other homes as well, but each home had a distinct ring, what you might call a ring tone. If your phone rang and it wasn’t your distinctive ring or ring tone, you were supposed to ignore it. However, since my dad was the local pastor, when certain individuals heard his distinctive ring, they’d quietly pick up the phone to listen in on the conversation. You never knew what kinda juicy news they might here when someone called the preacher! It was not uncommon in our house to hear my dad say; “Ethel, this is a private call not meant for your ears, you can hang up now.” and then he’d hear a click.

For you Gen Z’rs graduating today, the iPhone has been around as long as you have. The technological advances made during your life time were beyond our wildest imaginations.

We all lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, and while it affected my generation, it’s impact on older adults was nothing compared to the impact it had on kids. Schools were literally shut down, in some cases for more than a year and many Gen Z’rs were completely robbed of social interaction for that entire time. The effects were devastating. Which is one of the reasons why medical professionals and professional counselors believe that Gen Z’rs are so prone to struggles with anxiety.

Which is yet another reason I want to challenge you to think with eternity in mind. The more you focus your thinking on the here and now, the more you focus solely on the struggles of today, the more anxiety creeps in and steals your joy.

Perhaps right now you’re thinking, how do I live life with an eternal perspective?

Well for the next few minutes I want to give you some important steps to consider.

Trust God’s perfect plan.

In the Old Testament book of Jeremiah we read, Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

For people like me, raised in the church, this is a favorite verse and is quoted frequently. Anytime someone is faced with a hard situation, my generation is quick to quote Jeremiah 29:11, to let people know of God’s perfect plan, which is all fine and good until kiss your 5 month old baby one last time and struggle deeply understanding how this could be good. But let me briefly share with you what was happening when Jeremiah wrote these words.

The evil Babylonian Empire was on the doorstep of Jerusalem and the Nation of Judah was about to enter 70 years as captives in a foreign land. Yet Jeremiah writes, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

That leads us to a question, how do you trust God’s perfect plan when you’re faced with the tragedies of life that each of us will inevitably face? Well to begin with, while I am encouraging you to live with an eternal perspective, that is the perspective in which God has always operated. Except for God, well He’s not bound by time or space. What that means is, He can move from now into the future a thousand years from now, in the blink of an eye. In other words, He already knows the outcome of every event, of every decision and even of every tragedy.

So when Pam and I kissed our baby boy one last time 32 years ago, God already knew what we now know, that He was going to take the threads of our tragic loss and weave them into a beautiful blanket of His faithfulness. So, step one, trust God’s perfect plan.

Step 2, well you can’t fully trust God until you move to the point of surrendering your life to Him.

Our tendency is to have a different understanding of what surrender means. We tend to look at surrender as a bad thing, like we have just lost a battle and must therefore surrender to our enemy. But God’s perspective on surrender is completely counter than ours. When we surrender to God, we are surrendering, not to an enemy, but to a God Who has an immeasurable love for us, a God Who wants to bless us with eternal blessings.

In other words, surrendering to Him is a good thing.

Step 3, surround yourself with others who move with you in a God honoring direction as opposed to those who pull you away from Him. Each of your future schools has at least 1 Christian Student ministry you can be a part of as a student. I would be happy to assist you with getting a head start on joining a good Christian student ministry before you even set foot on campus. Additionally, all of your schools have a variety of churches you can also get involved in quickly. Plan on involving yourself in this area before you even get there.

The truth is, the friends you make as you enter this next phase of life have the potential to influence major decisions that can have a significant impact on your future and even your eternity, and I am not just talking about career choices. I’m also talking about choices like;

“Do I go to that party I’ve been invited to on Saturday night?”

To be honest, life on the east side of Kiowa County is pretty sheltered. Pretty much everyone you run in to knows both you and your family! Moving away from here can be a pretty eye opening experience. My experience wasn’t a lot different. Most of my life growing up was in small communities like this one. About the same time I went right from high school to a Bible college, my parents moved to the east coast. While it was rather difficult, all of the sudden I had this freedom to make choices without my parents knowledge, big choices.

Thankfully, for the most part I was surrounded by people who had “Chosen to live life with a higher purpose than themself”. As a result, I was pushed in directions that kept me from choices that could have adversely impacted my future and even my eternity. The parties and activities I was invited to attend, would in no way push me in a dangerous direction. Graduates, “Choose your friends carefully”.

Step 4, live life unselfishly, put others ahead of yourself. This type of living was patterned by both Jesus and His disciples.

One thing the experts have said about Gen Z’rs is, you want to make a difference, your generation doesn’t just want to go through the motions of life, you want to live with a higher purpose.

Which is why, as we close out this morning and in keeping with my challenge for all of us to live life with an eternal perspective, I want to close with an excerpt from a book written by a brilliant man who was close friends with JRR Tolkien. As a young adult he abandoned the faith he was raised in and it was his encounters with Tolkien and a few others where he moved back to the point of fully embracing Christianity. The brilliant man was CS Lewis and I’d like to read from a book he wrote title Mere Christianity. He writes in chapter 10 of the book of living life with an eternal perspective. This is what he writes;

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the(ir) present world were just those who thought most of the next (think eternity). The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven (with eternity). It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world (with an eternal perspective) that they have become so ineffective in this (world). Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.” (C.S Lewis Mere Christianity)

Live life with an eternal perspective.

Lastly, I want to close in the same way I did with Elijah last year; as you transition into this next phase of life;

Have fun!

But do so in a way where you won’t look back later and think…”What was I thinking!

Again, I’d like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you this morning.