Commencement
Commencement
Warrenton Christian School
May 2003
GREETING
I want to begin today by greeting Dr. White; he has done a wonderful job leading the school, the faculty and all of the administrators of Warrenton Christian School as well as the relatives of all the graduates. I consider it an honor to address you today and I thank you for the opportunity.
CONGRATULATIONS
To those graduating I want to commend you for your hard work and many years of diligence it took to get to this place. You worked hard and we are all pausing a moment to honor you and your achievements. You are achievers and finishers. We salute you.
MESSAGE
-I want to speak to you briefly today about WHAT NOW. I want to keep it simple enough so that it penetrates your heart and mind amidst all of the busyness of this day and all of the excitement you have.
-You’ve graduated. Now what? You may be getting a job or going on to more school or getting married but in any event you are turning a page and entering a new phase of your life. What should you do?
1. GET GOD’S WILL
-In order to be able to look back in 50 years and say I had a fruitful life, you are going to have to begin by getting it settled in your heart who runs this whole show.
-Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.
-God gave us this earth, our lives and everything in it to enjoy. We should never get confused about who it all belongs to. We are stewards of someone else’s possessions.
-We were purchased with a price. God is God and we are not.
-That isn’t putting you down. Humility is just accepting the truth about where everyone fits.
Psalm 62:9 says, “Lowborn men are but a breath,
the highborn are but a lie;
if weighed on a balance, they are nothing;
together they are only a breath.”
-Someone put it this way, “WHEN THE GAME IS OVER THE KING AND THE PAWN BOTH GO BACK INTO THE SAME BOX.” (Italian Proverb)
-In other words you need to make an honest assessment of God and yourself and who fits where.
-I know the class verse is Proverbs 16:3-“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”
-I want to think for a minute about a story in Genesis 11.
11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, a they found a plain in Shinar b and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
-In this story the people were working together. They had some of the basic tools to make any business, sports team, or church go far.
They had:
Unity/they were one people
Communication/one language
Common purpose/vision to build a tower
-Imagination is a gift from God. Biblical imagination is the discipline of wonder.
-Mankind has been able to accomplish great feats when he set his mind to it.
-President Kennedy set a goal to have men on the moon within a decade and even though he died the vision became a reality.
-The science fiction gadgets you see in movies are invented after someone sees it.
-The problem in this story is that they had the:
wrong motive
-They left out the most important thing: GOD’S PURPOSE.
-Their purpose was to make a name for themselves.
-It is better to give yourself to God and let Him make a name for you.
-It is possible to climb the ladder of success and find at the end of your life that the ladder was leaning against the wrong building.
-Get God’s purpose for your life.
-Before He formed you in your mother He knew you and had a plan for you.
-Have the courage and conviction to say YES GOD.
2. GET A LIFE
-Education and academics are a great tool. But they are just that.
-They are to be used as tools for life.
-They aren’t all there is to life.
-You need to focus on a well rounded life and not just the educational part.
-Someone said to a professor in college that he should remember the A students because they would come back to be professors. He should also remember his C students because they would come back to build a wing or a dorm.
-The point is, you are more than your grades, whether they were great or not so great.
-Your identity in Christ exceeds your school accomplishments. In some of our cases that was really great to know.
-I was talking to a student recently who really has to work hard for their grades. I said to them that the work ethic they are learned is actually probably as important as the material itself.
-Ronald Reagan went back to his college alma mater in Illinois to deliver a commencement speech. He had been a C student and he remarked, ‘you know there is no telling what I could have been if I had just gotten good grades.’
-Thank God for your education and all that you are yet to receive. I encourage you to get as much as possible.
-But add to that a strong faith in God, relationships with people who love you, a love for the life God has given you, a desire for wisdom and common sense.
Ecclesiastes
3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?
5: 19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. 20 He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.
8: 15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.
1 Timothy 6
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
-Get a life you enjoy. Enjoy the life God has given you.
3. GET A PLACE TO SERVE OTHERS
-The people we remember in life as great are those people who have served and cared for others like the Mother Theresas of the world.
-Jesus was telling the truth when He said; “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
-The truth is that you always receive more when you focus on others.
-The Talmud says that “You are only as wealthy as the amount you are able to give.”
1 Peter 4
10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
-You are privileged to have received a Christian education. You live in a free and great nation.
-Most of all you have been called and chosen by God to Love Him and help people.
-You have the responsibility of the privileged.
-With God’s help you are up to the task!
-Your greatest joy is to DISCOVER/DEVELOP/USE God’s calling and gifts in your life to serve others and glorify Him.
-You teachers, your parents, but most of all your God believes in you.
prayer
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a Or from the east; or in the east
b That is, Babylonia